Rising Generations
by Ghost of the Dawn
Summary: When Starscream seeks out a strange power source in space, its discovery starts a series of events that will change the future of Cybertron and all who inhabit it. Rated for language, possibly violence in later chapters. Equally D-con/Auto centric
1. Chapter 1: Harbinger

Three things:

1, For those who are seeing my work for the first time, this is NOT the place to start. This is the end of my G1 fanfic series. If you want to start at the beginning, check out my profile and you'll see the correct order of the stories.

2, Thank you SO, so much to everyone who had kept with me up to this point. That's a lot to read. And a big, special thanks to those who left reviews at the end of "Secret Lives". Oh my goodness, you guys, they were AWESOME! I seriously wanted to start writing that first day they started coming in. When I get feedback like that, it really makes me want to work hard for you. Keep that up and it will fuel me to the end. However, please keep in mind that with this story, my chapters are going to be long ones like this, so they will take longer to write. So please be patient. Anyone is welcome to ask me how the writing is going at any time. You are not allowed to demand updates. Please be polite and it will make me want to keep writing. :)

3, I started a poll on my profile. Please vote when you get the chance, even if the answer is no. I really want to know if this is something people would be interested in. If it isn't worth my time, I am more than happy to put my efforts into something else.

Rising Generations

By Ty-Chou aka Ghost of the Dawn

Chapter One: Harbinger

The Decepticon base skulked deep under the ocean, dark, but not silent. From where Mirage hid among the rocks and coral, his sensors picked up quite a bit of activity, both inside and out. This was surprising, considering the fact that the Decepticons were supposed to be in dire need of energy. But according to his readings, the base was running at almost top condition, humming along busily with several lights on.

A bit disconcerted by his findings, Mirage opened a radio channel to his commander. "Mirage to Prime. I have the D-Con base in my sights, but I don't think you're going to like this. I'm getting abnormally high energy readings everywhere. I don't know how, but the Decepticons got their hands on some energy from somewhere. A lot of it."

There was a rumble of disappointment on the other end. Apparently the Decepticons' lack of activity was not due to their lack of energy after all. It was a discouraging sign, but with the bulk of the Autobot army already stationed in the water, there was no turning back.

"Understood, Mirage," Optimus finally replied. "We will proceed as normal; we have gone up against fully-powered Decepticons before. This just means we must be cautious."

"Roger, Prime. I'm moving into position. Mirage out."

Further back in the darkness of the ocean, Optimus was already starting to worry. "It does not make me happy to hear that," he informed Prowl.

"It doesn't matter," Prowl insisted. "I have contingency plans for any level of fire power that might be found there. We continue with the attack."

"Agreed," Optimus nodded. He radioed for all Autobots to get into position and wait for his signal.

Over the next few minutes, each team radioed that they were stationed and ready to go. Optimus glanced once more at Prowl, serious and ready to spring, before signaling the attack. This time they would give it their all. Failure was not an option.

The first Decepticons to notice the attack were the Constructicons, who were actually outside the base, keeping an eye on the drill and working on their next project, which would generate energy from the crashing waves on the surface. They were so involved in their work that they did not notice they were under attack until the ocean floor itself shook from the wave of firepower hitting the Nemesis right next to them.

"What the frak is going on?" Scrapper asked.

"It's... Autobots..." Mixmaster said with surprise clear in his voice. The Decepticons weren't used to being attacked directly unless they had done something serious to either the humans or the Autobots themselves, and they had done neither recently. All activity had been directed only toward gathering and storing energy upon Megatron's orders. They were not expecting this unprovoked attack at all.

"They're going to ruin everything," Hook lamented. "All our beautiful work."

"Then let's not let them get away with it," Bonecrusher growled.

"Agreed," Scrapper nodded. "Decepticons! Merge to form Deva-" He was cut off as a massive set of jaws clamped down on his shoulder.

"Dinobots!" Long Haul barked and immediately started firing at Grimlock.

The rest of the Dinobots appeared out of the murky bottom, the combined fire power of the Constructicons hardly bothering them. Though most Cybertronian weapons still worked in water, they were hardly as potent as on land. With the heavy armor the Dinobots carried, they were absolutely unstoppable as they unleashed their full primal ferocity on the combining team.  
While the Dinobots charged, Sideswipe broke into one of the bottom levels of the Nemesis with his pile drivers. Sunstreaker covered the new entrance as several Autobots spilled into the base, each fully armed and ready for battle. Jazz brought up the rear to oversee Prowl's infiltration plan.

Every room on every level would be searched. No door unopened, no hallway unchecked. The Autobots split up and approached each section systematically and efficiently, as they had been trained to do. Tables were turned over, shelves and cabinets ripped from the walls and doors from their hinges. Even Jazz had to admit the damage was not necessary for the search, but he preferred to participate rather than try to rein it in. They were sending a message this time and, as they smashed every screen and data pad, anything important they could find, Jazz wanted to make sure the Decepticons heard the message loud and clear.

Optimus Prime led a second, larger wave of Autobots into the base, flanked by Prowl. They sloshed through the rising seawater on the lower levels, passing the search parties and moving to higher levels. They were after the Decepticons themselves. They would neutralize any resistance Megatron was planning, giving the others time to properly search the entire base. They had stasis cuffs and energy bands ready. They couldn't hold Megatron and his powerful seekers for long, but they would buy some time.

Prowl considered himself mentally and physically prepared for this mission. He had planned, re-planned and considered every possible scenario in his head. Anything that Megatron would try to stop them, anything the seekers tried, anything Soundwave had waiting for them, he would counter them all. He was ready. If Prime were injured, he would fight Megatron himself. The Decepticon leader was powerful, but Prowl was fast. If he could get the stasis cuffs on him, the head of the monster would be cut off and the rest of the Decepticons would become confused as to what they should do next. Optimus had agreed. Focus on getting Megatron and the rest would crumble.

Prowl was ready to face him. He could do this.

All scans told them that a group of Decepticon signatures clustered in the main command room. Prowl had expected that. The room was large enough to fight in and Megatron, clearly, already had his troops in formation, ready for them. This was going to be even worse than the first time. A lot worse.

The Autobots gathered outside the closed doors of the command room, ready, with their weapons. Prowl used one of Jazz's explosives to blow the doors open. Before the smoke cleared, the Autobots spilled into the room.

In all of Prowl's careful planning, he'd never even imagined what they found there.

"What in the name of Primus is this mess?" Ironhide demanded, stupefied as he surveyed the scene.

All the Decepticons in the room were already on the ground, passed out, drunk as could be. The place was a mess and there was spilled energon and sticky cubes everywhere.  
It took Prowl's logic circuits a moment to recover from the unexpected find. Optimus issued orders to his troops to secure the inebriated Decepticons and get them all lined up against the wall.

Prowl was only knocked out of his stupor when Bluestreak clapped him on the shoulder. "We're not done yet, Prowl. I don't see Megatron anywhere."  
That brought him right back to the task at hand. Maybe it was a trick to make the Autobots confused while Megatron attacked.

"Don't let your guard down, Bluestreak. He's still around here somewhere."

The gunner nodded and checked his rifle. "Let him come. I'm ready for him."

But Megatron never came.

Even as the Dinobots marched the battered Constructicons in and lined them up with the rest, it was obvious there were still quite a few missing. Optimus left Prowl and a few Autobots to watch the Decepticons while he took a group to search for Megatron himself. Over an hour later, not a single Autobot had discovered anyone else on the base, friend or foe. Optimus had seen the empty base himself, wandering the corridors of the Nemesis.

"Any luck, Prime?" Jazz voice radioed to him.

Optimus looked over to where Sunstreaker took out his frustrations on some equipment that was already damaged, but apparently still needed some good kicking as well. Sideswipe was helping him break everything in sight. They had already combed this level once over, same as they had done with the others. The base had been searched from top to bottom and the Autobots found nothing.

"Negative," he responded to Jazz. "There is no other Decepticon activity. Just how many of them are we missing?"

"As near as I can tell: four cassettes, three seekers, two triple changers, one communications specialist, one Decepticon leader, and a partridge in a pear tree."

"Great," Optimus sighed. That many were a more-than-adequate force by themselves, wherever they were. "I'm coming back up."

Once back in the command room, Optimus surveyed the line of captured Decepticons. They had all the Constructicons and Stunticons, plus the Insecticons, Reflector, Dirge, Thrust and Ramjet. Still an impressive collection, but with so many still unaccounted for, Optimus was nervous.

"Prime," Wheeljack said, catching his attention. "I've looked at what remains of what the Constructicons were working on. They were drilling for oil. They were harvesting their own energy source. That's why they haven't been attacking any power plants lately and why..." he motioned to the energon on the floor. "All this."

"Interesting," Optimus confirmed. "I'm surprised they would resort to such a thing."

Wheeljack shrugged. "I think we can all surprise ourselves when we're forced to survive."

Optimus turned from the inventor to address the Decepticons. He still had more important matters to discuss than their sudden ingenuity.

"Alright, where's Megatron?" he demanded of the line of captured Decepticons. "What is he up to?"

The Decepticons all looked at each other as if unsure which one of them he was asking.

Prime zeroed in on the three jets who were looking the most nervous in his presence. "I want some answers NOW!"

The three of them jumped at the demand, but didn't answer.

"You can quit your blustering, Prime," Motormaster announced in a lazy drawl. "They don't have any answers to give you. None of us do."

Optimus stalked down the line toward the Stunticon until they were toe to toe. Presently, he was the only Decepticon tall enough to look Optimus right in the optics and was hardly concerned with the predicament they were in.

Optimus stared him down. "So you are telling me that Megatron just left and didn't tell a single one of you where he was going?"

Motormaster smirked at him as if he were the one with the energy cannon and Optimus was in the cuffs. "That's what I'm saying. The only thing he told us was to watch the base while he was gone."

"And you sure did a hella slag job with that," Ironhide huffed.

"What about your prisoner? Did he take her with him?" Optimus then asked.

Motormaster just smirked even wider. "What prisoner?"

Optimus clenched his fists. A radio signal interrupted his growing frustration.

"Smokescreen to Optimus Prime. I found something."

Hope flooded through his system. "This is Prime, what do you have?"

The blue Autobot stood on a large, circular launch pad, which the Autobots had never known existed. Mirage and Hound were poking around in the corners, but were just as flabbergasted as he was to have found it in the first place.

"Boss, you won't believe where I am. We found a launch pad where the Decepticons, no doubt, were keeping our stolen space shuttle. Hound says the burn marks from the thrusters were fairly recent, perhaps in the past few days. But Megatron's gone, Boss. I don't think he's even on Earth any more."

Optimus paused to think, looking at his Autobots who watched him, hopeful that there was good news. "Do you know his destination?"

"Negative, Boss. I've been searching their launch information files. Unless they encrypted them so well I couldn't find them, and we both know that's an impossibility, I would say they didn't have a specific destination in mind when they launched. My best guess would be possibly because they're after something that's moving. So they probably aren't using it to get back to Cybertron."

Optimus took a moment to digest the new information. Megatron. On a space shuttle. Going to Primus knew where. What could he be after?

"Is there anything else you can tell me, Smokescreen?"

"Weeeell, it might have been possible to glean some information from the other data files on the base, were it not for the fact that your boys trashed everything of use the second they got their hands on it."

Optimus fought the urge to rub at his optics. This was quickly turning into a nightmare.

"Status, sir?" Prowl pressed when Optimus failed to share the information he'd been given.

Optimus placed a heavy hand on his second's white shoulder. "Megatron is gone. He took our shuttle and... he's not on Earth any longer. We're too late."

Despite his reputation for being emotionless, several expressions ran over Prowl's features: disbelief, confusion, hopelessness and anger. He stepped away from his commander's hand, trying to think. Even if Crystal were still in his possession before the launch, Megatron would have no need to take her with him into space. She wasn't useful to him at all up there. And if she wasn't up there and she wasn't in the base, the only logical explanation was that the Decepticons had already done away with her. Even if on the oddest chance she had gone with Megatron, the odds of her coming back to Earth in one piece now were monumentally small.

The realization crashed on him so heavily, he could hardly keep standing. She wasn't coming back.

"Sir, I think I found something," Trailbreaker announced as he came in with Cliffjumper and Bumblebee. "Look at this."

In his hand was a sloppy collection of wire and random Decepticon parts. Optimus had no idea why Trailbreaker would think this was important at all ... not until he hung the collection from his finger correctly and it took on a familiar shape. Trailbreaker jiggled it and the wind chime played its song quite beautifully.

Optimus took the handicraft in his hand and found, etched on the top piece of metal, the familiar line: '_Light shines brightest in the dark.'_ There was no question in his processor who had created this. She had been alive in the base at one time and they had been far too late to save her. He clutched the makeshift chime in his hand and then looked to his seconds.

"Prowl? Jazz? What do you suggest?"

The entire room hung heavy with silence as Jazz looked at Prowl and Prowl looked straight ahead in thought. The Dinobots shifted impatiently, swishing their tails and baring their teeth. Sunstreaker looked like he was going to pounce both seconds if they gave an answer he didn't like.

Prowl looked all around the Decepticon command room. He looked at his leader, his fellow Autobots, and their new prisoners. Then his optics settled on Jazz and it was obvious they were thinking the same thing. Prowl nodded at him and then addressed the captured and cuffed Decepticons.

"Evacuate," he told them.

The Decepticons looked at the black and white Autobot in confusion. The Autobots were now evacuating the base? It seemed a likely course of action since there was no way the Autobot base could house that many Decepticon prisoners for any length of time.

Prowl pressed a button on a small remote and all the stasis cuffs fell off. "Evacuate," he told the Decepticons again. "If you wish to live, you will abandon this base."

Realization settled on all the Decepticons at once. The Autobots were not going to allow the Nemesis to remain in one piece in Megatron's absence. In the past on Cybertron, this type of vicious warfare was not unheard of, not even on the side of the Autobots. But things had been different on Earth.

Not this time, however. A line had been crossed and it was time to retaliate in kind.

The Stunticons were the first to recover from the news. "Yeah, well, who needs this dump with its tiny rooms anyway?" Drag Strip announced. "I'd rather drive!"

He transformed and took off out of the command room with the other Stunticons following close behind. That was the cue for the rest of the Decepticons to cut their losses and get out of the base before the Autobots changed their mind about slagging them as well.

Optimus also knew their retreat was a good idea. Revenge was a very tempting mistress that even the best could be seduced by. It was one thing to kill another in the heat of battle to save your own spark, but it was different to execute prisoners, no matter what they had done to deserve it. It was best to let the Decepticons go and allow his Autobots to take out whatever frustration they had left on the base itself. Hopefully, that would be enough to calm their sparks and allow them to move on.

Sunstreaker didn't even wait for permission before firing on the nearest console. It exploded as he screamed every vile thing he could think of about the Decepticon faction. That was all the Dinobots needed to go wild themselves, tearing up the very walls. Optimus Prime turned his back as the rest of the Autobots had their fill of destroying the personal property of their enemies. Some were beating out their inner demons and taking revenge, embracing past grudges for themselves or loved ones. Others were just enjoying the carnage.

Optimus slowly made his way back out of the Nemesis as Jazz radioed that everyone now had 15 minutes to get in their punches and then bail out before his collection of carefully placed explosions went off. Optimus continued to trudge along the ocean floor until he was a safe distance away before turning to wait for his Autobots.

To his surprise, he saw the white form of Prowl trailing after him, only a few steps behind. He had not stayed to exact any kind of satisfaction from the base.

As if he had asked out loud why not, Prowl looked up at Optimus as he passed. "I would not have brought her back," he said simply.

He did not wait for his fellow Autobots to emerge from the doomed ship. He did not stand proudly with his brothers as they watched the base shudder and shake with explosions, as the bubbles spilled out of the Nemesis while water rushed into its corridors, flooding every corner. Instead, the white Autobot disappeared silently into the dark murkiness of the cold ocean.

Optimus remained, though he wasn't sure why. He felt no satisfaction from the Nemesis' demise, but he felt he needed to witness it. This would be the last chapter. There would be no chasing after Megatron, no matter where he had gone. With a few days head-start and a space jump drive on the shuttle, he would be impossible to track, even for Omega Supreme. The search and the wondering was over. It was now time to let it go.

Wherever her spirit had gone, Optimus Prime hoped Crystal could find peace.

* * *

Peace was a far cry to what Crystal was feeling aboard the Autobot shuttle piloted by Decepticons. The ship had plenty of windows, but she was having a hard time looking out. Space was big, it was very, very big. Bigger than the Ark, than the ocean, than the Earth. It was too big. And to her, it was frightening.

Even more frightening was the thought that she was going to die out here, not even near her home planet. So impossibly far away and farther still with each space jump, she would never be found by anything that had even heard of her home world. How could life be so cruel as this?

The Decepticons seemed unconcerned with her personal crisis. The Autobot shuttle was in top condition when they launched, so they had no need of her services. Yet another tragedy for Crystal, not having anything to do to keep her mind off the wide, open nothingness they were swimming in. So she spent her days huddled in the corner, shaking and filling her mind with the horrors of space.

She didn't even realize how long she had allowed herself to slip slowly into horror-stricken madness until the very large feet of Skywarp stood in front of her.

"You have been cowering for almost three solar cycles," he informed her, hands on his hips. "It's pathetic. Get up."

When she didn't move fast enough, Skywarp grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet. It was the same one that had been ripped off a week earlier. Crystal tried hard not to yelp in fear. She stumbled feebly along as she was led through the ship toward the main command room. All the other Decepticons were gathered there, enjoying an impressive panoramic view of the cosmos. The moment she glimpsed such a great view of space, Crystal started to struggle again. Skywarp let her go, tossing her on the floor where she was happy to huddle again, back facing the windows.

"Megatron wants to keep an eye on you, so stick around," the seeker told her as if he were ordering a dog.

Crystal nodded, but didn't look up.

Unable to understand her fear, Skywarp just shook his head and returned to join the others lounging around and enjoying the view.

The Decepticons were in a good mood these days. The fact that they were constantly full of energon ensured they stayed that way, and they were on a mission to find an unlimited supply of energy to keep them in high spirits indefinitely. Aside from Soundwave, who was navigating and keeping a sharp eye for any space debris that might get in their way, all the Decepticons were joking around and having a good time. Even Megatron, who kept to himself in his command chair, had a pleased look on his face. And Starscream hardly seemed bothered by the fact that he had been caught red-handed trying to leave the planet and now had to share whatever findings to which his discovery might lead them.

That one baffled Crystal the most. Megatron didn't even seem to care that Starscream attempted treason against him on a regular basis. Sure, he got angry and blustered, huffed and slapped Starscream around for a while. But then he went on to business as usual and Starscream went back to being his second-in-command until he got the itch again and started cooking up his next scheme. It was like watching a dark comedy play itself out act after act. Crystal had stopped trying to figure it out after the first day in space. The social structure of Decepticon life was just too complicated for her.

Meanwhile, Rumble and Frenzy were constantly making pests of themselves around the command console as Soundwave tried to steer. They had been swatted at several times by Soundwave himself for touching things they shouldn't, but both insisted that space travel was soooo boring. It took Megatron threatening to have them confined to Soundwave's chest compartment for the rest of the trip to get them to shut up and sit still for a few minutes. But that didn't stop them fiddling with a few of the controls for too long.

"Hey," Frenzy announced. "I'm picking up some space-radio waves. I think we found a pirate radio channel."

Rumble perked up. Interstellar radio pirates had been around for centuries. They would hover over inhabited planets and record various musical collections from the population, making their money by selling them to music connoisseurs all over the cosmos. They constantly played their collections as far out as they could so passing space ships could get a taste of what they had to offer. It certainly made for better traveling during long, silent trips.

"Turn it up, Frenzy," Rumble encouraged. "Let's see if they have anything in Cybertronian."

The first song filled the command room and both cassettes frowned.

"Aw man, they're playing Earth songs," Frenzy whined. "They must be somewhere behind us, going the same route."

"How about we think about it as the last farewell to that mud-ball planet?" Blitzwing suggested from where he and Astrotrain were playing some sort of game with glowing chips. "After we come back with this power source, it will be back to Cybertron from then on."

"Yeah, why not?" Rumble agreed. "One last good-bye to the organic trash planet."

He turned up the volume.

Crystal raised her head as Tom Jones' familiar golden voice reached her audios. She turned her head around to see Decepticons dancing around stupidly to the upbeat tune as if they knew it by heart. Crystal felt she was so far out of her element that her whole word was spinning out of control. No rabbit hole ever dreamed up was more bizarre than this.

Why was she out here? Just because Starscream and Megatron wanted to play Interplanet Janet across the cosmos didn't mean she needed to be invited along. She was useless out here. Why, oh why couldn't they have just left her back at the Nemesis on her own planet?

_It's not unusual to go out at any time.  
But when I see you out and about it's such a crime.  
If you should ever want to be loved by anyone,  
It's not unusual it happens every day no matter what you say.  
You find it happens all the time ._

Crystal wished she had the ability to hurl.

_Love will never do what you want it to.  
Why can't this crazy love be mine? _

"Hey droopy face, get up and come play this game with us."

It was Blitzwing standing over her now. The idea of being invited to join them in anything just about broke what sanity Crystal had left.

"Muh?" was her intelligent response.

"Come on, it's not that hard," he insisted, grabbing her arm and pulling her to her feet. "Even something like you can figure it out."

Before she knew it, Crystal was sitting around a table in the back between Blitzwing and Thundercracker. Skywarp and Astrotrain were also there with Starscream hesitantly joining them. He looked as suspicious as Crystal did about the whole setup.

"Come on, sit, Scream," Skywarp urged as he patted the chair. "This is all in good fun."

"Just because you get bored easily," Starscream muttered. Again, the fact that Skywarp and Thundercracker had been pointing their weapons at him at the beginning of this flight didn't seem to matter to anyone now. It was as if it had never happened.

Each had an energon cube. Crystal's was smaller than the others. She felt dwarfed by the size of so many large Decepticons gathered so closely to her.

"Okay," Blitzwing announced to the group at the table. "The Stunticons taught me this, don't ask me where they heard of it. But we go around the table and each one of us says something that they have never done and if anyone else here has, they have to take a drink, okay?"

Crystal almost smirked. She knew exactly where the Stunticons had heard of the "I have never" game. Apparently the other Decepticons didn't realize just how immersed into the Earth culture they were.

"So, for example," Blitzwing continued. "If I said I had never double-crossed Megatron, Starscream would take a drink."

"You would also be lying," Starscream countered, not amused.

"Yes well... it was just as an example," Blitzwing waved him off. "So I'll go first for real this time. I have never... had only one alt mode."

All three seekers took a drink from their cubes. Astrotrain, who had also been a triple changer all his life, did not. They looked expectantly at Crystal.

"I don't even have one alt mode," she smirked, not drinking. Who did they think they were fooling? She knew how to play this game.

"Fine," Astrotrain announced, going next. "I have never warped into one of my wing mates."

He grinned at Skywarp who swore loudly and took another drink.

That opened up the door to take personal jabs at each other. Thundercracker said he had never been outmaneuvered by the Autobot Tracks. Starscream insisted it was a one-time thing and that his guidance systems were malfunctioning that day before taking a drink. And so it went around the table. Crystal had an easy time of it. On her first turn she said she had never had the ability to fly and everyone at the table had to take a drink.

They went around the table several more times, each "I have never" from the Decepticons was very specific and Crystal had not even touched her cube while a few of them were getting a little tipsy. Starscream was the first to realize the plan was backfiring. The whole reason Crystal had been invited to play in the first place was so they could get her drunk and laugh at her.

Also, so they could possibly find out a little bit more about what she was. So far, all they knew was what they had already known: that she wasn't one of them.

Starscream decided to end that right now and looked straight at her. "I have never been pink," he announced.

"Son of a bitch," Crystal mumbled and took her first drink of the game.

Astrotrain also took a drink and they all stared at him. "It was a prank a long time ago. Long story," he insisted.

Normally, a statement like that demanded explanation, but the Decepticons were on a mission. Stories could wait.

"I have never been without an alt mode," Thundercracker said next and Crystal had to take another drink.

Playing it this way, Crystal was soon as over-energized as the rest of them. Perhaps even more so. Her body just wasn't used to running on more than a little energon at a time. Just as she thought, being over-energized did indeed put you in a great mood. The music playing now was from a completely different planet, but Crystal was now insisting she knew exactly what the words meant and was making them up as she went along.

The Decepticons, being as drunk as she was, laughed at her. Blitzwing was trying to sing as well. Whatever plans they'd had in the beginning were completely forgotten under the pleasant haze of drunkenness.

Rumble approached the table, shaking his head. Soundwave hadn't allowed any of his cassettes to join the game. Someone had to remain sober in case something happened.

"You slaggers look pathetic," he informed them.

"Shut up, Frenzy," Astrotrain barked at him. "Like we haven't seen you dancing on the tables when you were over-energized. You're just jealous you can't drink with us."

"I'm Rumble, you mismatched moron! And we're on a mission! What if we get attacked? I'll have to save all yer drunken afts!"

All the Decepticons at the table erupted into laughter at the thought. Each considered themselves a master at warfare, even when so over-energized they couldn't stand.

"Har, har, just keep laughing you slaggers," Rumble shot back. "At least we ain't on Earth. Can you imagine the humans seeing you sorry scrap heaps this way?"

"I used to be human!" Crystal announced happily.

The room fell quiet.

Crystal's mouth hung open like she was going to say something else.

Blitzwing slapped her in the back. "I love this thing, it's hilarious!"

Crystal's face collided with the table and she did not get up. She was out cold. The Decepticons laughed at her and continued to drink.

* * *

Crystal staggered back to consciousness most ungracefully. At first, it felt like her balance stabilizer had come loose again. She flopped around for a bit before all her motor relays fell back in sync with each other. Her vision was blurry for a moment before it could finally make out the face and glowing optics of Thundercracker squatting over her.

"Wow," he said. "Too much energon really hits you hard."

After a few failed attempts, Crystal managed to get herself properly sitting up on the floor, her back against the wall. "How long was I out?"

"A long time. We're about one space jump away from our destination now."

Right as he said it, there was the familiar rushing sensation as the ship jumped again. After just waking up from an energon-induced coma, it was not a welcome experience. Not that she enjoyed space jumping when she was completely sober, either.

There was that split second of weightlessness that made her feel like she was just going to slide right out of existence. It made her panic for a moment until she felt Thundercracker's arm press her firmly to the wall. It made her feel more secure when she had something solid holding her down through the weightlessness. She didn't even realize she was clutching his arm until it was over.

Thundercracker looked surprised for a moment, as if he wasn't expecting to offer assistance, but his body just reacted. It reminded Crystal of the time on the Nemesis when they were trying to catch Wildrider. Thundercracker had stretched out an arm to save her from getting hit by the Stunticon. Strange.

"I've got a visual! I see it!" Starscream's excited voice pierced the room.

All Decepticons were up at the front windows. Even Crystal was trying to peek around them to see what they were looking at.

Megatron stood by his raised command chair, looking out with arms crossed. There was something looming in the blackness of space and getting closer as they moved toward it. Its mass was several times the ship's. Starscream confirmed that the object was what they had been tracking, though they still didn't know what it was.

As they got closer, Soundwave maneuvered the ship to carefully circle around their target, getting a view of it from all sides.

"It's just a common asteroid," Skywarp complained. "Starscream, if you led us all the way out here in the middle of space for this-"

"It's not just any asteroid, you idiot," Starscream growled back. "I'm still getting a signal. There is something giving off energy on it somewhere, something big. We just need to find it."

"Megatron," Soundwave reported. "Instruments indicate warp gate in local area. Corresponding output near Cybertron."

"Excellent!" Megatron nodded. "Quite an agreeable coincidence. Perhaps we were meant to go on this little excursion of yours, Starscream. Primus means for us to finally make our glorious return to our home planet."

"Humph!" Starscream huffed as he fiddled with his instruments, trying to get a better reading on the asteroid. "Primus has very little to do with this, I'm sure."

They drifted closer, trying to find a place on the large, jagged rock smooth enough for them to land. On the underbelly, it was flatter. Crystal was still trying to get used to the fact that there wasn't an "up" in space. The shuttle landed lightly and the engines were turned off. The Decepticons waited as Starscream looked at his instruments again.

"We're too close to it, now. I can't get a fix on exactly where it is, the signature it's giving off is too strong. We'll have to search the entire asteroid."

Megatron ordered it so. Starscream and Soundwave stepped off the shuttle onto the asteroid and looked around their immediate area. Rumble and Frenzy followed after without any orders while Ravage remained in the doorway, growling at the open space. Starscream didn't blame the mechanical feline at all. Something wasn't right about this. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was definitely something more to this space rock than what it appeared to be.

_'Oh, you have something to hide, don't you?'_ Starscream thought to himself. _'I'm going to find all your secrets.'_

"Readings indicate high amounts of solid, manufactured metal beneath asteroid surface," Soundwave reported.

"Ah, so someone did, indeed, build you," Starscream said to the empty rock. He then looked down at one of his smaller cohorts. "Rumble, smash this rock in two."

"My pleasure."

No sooner had Rumble transformed his arms into pile drivers, than the very ground they were standing on began to shudder.

"Woah, I haven't done anything yet," Rumble complained.

It was a strange sensation. The ground beneath their feet shook and moaned, but Starscream felt the distinct sensation of objects sliding into place somewhere beneath the surface of the asteroid. Before he could concoct a plan of action, a large mound of dirt and rocks rose out of the ground right next to the Decepticons. It continued to rise until it was taller than the Decepticons themselves, revealing double doors, like a secret elevator. The Decepticons had their weapons aimed at the doors, but there was no one standing at the other side. Just an open, metal hallway leading downward into the belly of the asteroid.

When he was certain they were not going to be attacked, Starscream finally lowered his null rays. He looked towards the ship. Megatron was standing on the plank, having witnessed the unexpected event himself. It seemed either someone wanted them to enter. But for what purpose? Was this a friendly invitation or a trap?

"So? What next, leader?" Starscream asked. "Shall we go in?" He was dying to enter, but even he was apprehensive about it. Megatron was more headstrong about getting his way. The seeker secretly hoped his leader would just force his way through any resistance that might show up inside, leaving Starscream safe to go in after the threat had been nullified by Megatron's fusion cannon.

But Megatron was just as wary. The prize Starscream promised was worth the risk, if it actually existed. There was no guarantee they would find what they were looking for down there.  
Crystal squeaked as Megatron grabbed her arm, dragging her down the plank and onto the surface of the asteroid. She felt panic hit her as she was exposed to the openness of space. People could die in space. She knew she wouldn't, she didn't need to breathe, but those survival instincts were still there. It made her want to hold her breath. And the open space around her, vast, infinite, it frightened her. She could feel the lack of gravity on this small space rock. What would happen if she fell loose and was sentenced to float around in darkness for all time?  
Megatron had other plans, however. He did not cut her loose to get lost in space. Instead, he approached the open doorway and threw her inside. She landed lightly in the weak gravity, but still none too gracefully, and looked down the metal hallway. It was plain and nonthreatening, just like any metal hallway in the Ark or the Nemesis. She looked back to Megatron for instruction.

He motioned with his hand for her to go in deeper, his face emotionless as stone.

None of the other Decepticons followed after her, though all of them were watching. Crystal finally understood. She was going in to make sure it was safe for the rest of them. The big, strong Decepticons with their heavy armor and their weapons were letting her go in first. How kind of them.

Turning back to the dark hallway, Crystal steeled her nerves. Might as well get it over with. She took one step forward.

A red laser shot out from the wall and Crystal flinched, covering herself with her arms, closing her optics and waiting for the final blow. When nothing happened, after a few seconds, she opened her optics again. The thin, red light was roving around her frame, but not harming her. It spread out into a line, starting at the top of her head and scanned over her entire body.

Then it disappeared. Immediately after, lights flipped on one by one all the way down the hall, lighting the way deep into the asteroid.

"Very good," Megatron said as he stepped over the threshold.

Crystal made no acknowledgment of the compliment, and turned to go back to the safety of the ship. Megatron's arm shot out to stop her.

"Uh uh," he corrected. "You are going out in front."

Crystal visibly slumped in disappointment as Megatron turned to his crew.

"Thundercracker, Skywarp. You will lead and watch the prisoner. Starscream, Soundwave, you will join us. Blitzwing and Astrotrain, watch the shuttle. Inform me of any suspicious activity."

And so it was that the Decepticons ventured into the bowels of the unknown, the asteroid itself lighting their way. Crystal led them down the hallway with Skywarp and Thundercracker right behind her. Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave and his tapes followed behind. Rumble and Frenzy had their doubts about the situation and stayed near Soundwave's side. Ravage, who had been crouched in the shuttle, sprinted out at the last minute as Soundwave walked through the doorway. Now he was wandering up and down the halls, scanning, sniffing and growling.

Crystal didn't blame the little Decepticon; she didn't like it in here either. The halls seemed normal at first, but then she began to notice that they were too empty. No air ducts, no pipes or wiring. There were no panels, doors, or even light switches. Just walls and more walls. It didn't seem right. It didn't feel like anybody lived here.

Ravage was now in front of all of them, despite Crystal being meant to take the brunt of whatever might be around the corner. He sniffed at a wall and then froze. If he had fur, his tail would have been bushy and his hackles raised.

Then, the rest of them heard it. It sounded far away at first, somewhere on the other side of the walls. It was a heavy sliding noise, of one massive part moving into another. Everyone froze as they tried to determine the source of the sound. Audios were strained. Starscream pressed his head against the wall to hear better. Thundercracker curiously put his hand on the wall. He could feel the vibrations. Something on the other side was moving.

The hall shifted suddenly. It broke in half, neatly and cleanly, as if it was always meant to do so. Skywarp and Megatron locked optics as their group was cut in half between them. Then Skywarp's side rotated away and there was suddenly a wall where the hall used to be.

"What the slag is this?" Frenzy demanded as he and Rumble inspected the new wall.

Starscream was still awestruck to respond, but Megatron pointed to the wall. "Demolish it," he told the cassettes.

Both grinned as they transformed their arms. But before any damage could be done, the floor dropped out from all of them, sending them plummeting several stories downward. Megatron and Soundwave managed to land with most of their dignity still intact. Starscream slowly descended, his thrusters on low with Rumble and Frenzy clinging to him.

The open hole above them had disappeared.

"An interesting turn of events," Starscream said mildly as he landed.

"I very much dislike surprises," Megatron growled, as if it were all the seeker's fault.

Starscream opened his mouth for his usual retort when a red laser shot out. It spread into a thin line and he allowed it to scan him from head to toe, watching as it moved over his fingers. When the laser retreated, Starscream immediately followed it to its source on the wall. He picked at it with his fingers as if trying to draw the laser out.

"All communication with shuttle and other Decepticons is being disrupted," Soundwave reported after trying to hail the other two seekers."

"Someone knows we're here." Starscream said. "They seem to be trying to divide and confuse us. No doubt protecting their power source. They're probably trying to figure out what we are so they can fight against us."

"Let them try," Megatron said. "If this is the best they can do, they're going to need all the help they can get."

"Agreed," Starscream nodded. He started for the new tunnel spread out for them. "Let's see what we can find."

* * *

Above, Thundercracker, Skywarp and Crystal were still shocked by what happened. They were thrown to the side as the entire section they were standing in turned a 90 degree angle. Now they were staring down an identical hallway, leading off in both directions. Ravage was scratching frantically at the wall where the other hallway should have been.

Thundercracker crouched, weapons aimed down one hall then the other, waiting for an attack. He had Crystal pinned to the wall behind him. Again, his first reaction was to protect and Crystal was once again baffled by this Decepticon's actions.

Skywarp was not as paranoid, but still frowning. "Skywarp to Megatron. Come in." No response. He tried again. "Skywarp to Soundwave. Do you read me?"

Still nothing.

"Great. Whatever's going on, it's also jammed our communications. So what do you want to do, 'Cracker?"

When it seemed likely there would be no attack, Thundercracker finally relaxed. "What can we do, but continue the mission? I'm sure Megatron is still going as well. We'll just meet him there."

Skywarp suddenly smirked. "Slag, maybe we'll even find it first. Can you picture Starscream's reaction when he sees us already there with power supply in hand?"

Thundercracker's mouth ticked up just a little. "He just might overload one of his systems."

Skywarp laughed. "I hope it's his vocal processor."

Even Thundercracker chuckled at that. "Come on, Ravage, let's go." He slapped his thigh. "Soundwave is going the same place we are."

Ravage gave one more growl to the wall and then trotted after the blue seeker. Thundercracker now took point down the hall, instead of Crystal leading as Megatron intended. Skywarp followed behind with Crystal bringing up the rear, simply because they probably would have left her behind if she didn't follow.

Silently, she marveled at their brazenness in stalking the halls without their leader to force caution upon them. That itself spoke of what these killing machines thought of themselves. They were used to being the meanest things in the sky and that confidence was strong enough to transfer even to the sliding tunnels of a deep space asteroid. They were confident they could handle anything that came their way.

Crystal found that interesting, but there was another subject that was brought up that interested her even more.

"So, what exactly is your relationship to Starscream anyway?" she asked boldly. "Are you brothers or what?"

Thundercracker glanced back at her, surprised at the sudden question. But he returned his attention to the tunnel just as quickly when Skywarp took it upon himself to answer.  
"Brothers? Me? Share a creator with that glitch head? I don't think so."

Crystal's optics squinted in confusion as Ravage wandered underfoot before slinking up ahead. "But... why do you all look alike if you don't have the same creator?"

Skywarp's demeanor visibly darkened. "It's the initiation test for those who didn't come willingly to Megatron's side."

Before Crystal could ask what that meant, Skywarp shouldered past Thundercracker and took the lead. He left the other two to trail behind.

"I'm sorry," Crystal whispered. "I didn't realize it was a touchy subject."

At first, it didn't seem that Thundercracker would bother to answer her, but then he drifted closer and lowered his voice.

"Before Megatron had an army to command, he had one of his lieutenants, Shockwave, take injured citizens from battle to rebuild and convert."

"Convert? You mean brainwash- er, I mean, reprogram?"

"Yes. We were reformatted and reprogrammed into Megatron's new armada for his cause. It was a lot of trial and error on his part. Skywarp was unfortunate enough to be selected for testing of the warp drive. He was the only one to survive the installation process."

Crystal suddenly realized exactly why Skywarp reacted the way he did that time in the med bay. If she'd ended up being someone's guinea pig, she would panic if she woke up with someone standing over her as well.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. He survived and is now the charming Decepticon we know today."

"I CAN still hear you!" Skywarp snapped from the front.

That caused Crystal to smile a bit, but her tone was still serious. She raised her voice so both could hear. "So you know that Megatron wiped your memories. He took away your identities, your lives. You don't even remember who you were before then. So why do you still follow him when you know what he did to you?"

It was Skywarp who answered this time. "Because he's right. Megatron fights for Cybertron, for the glory and pride of our people. The sacrifice is worth it."

Crystal chose not to push that subject. She knew so little of Cybertron's civil war and its politics, there would be no point in arguing who had the better cause.

"So that happened to Starscream, too? His memories were also wiped?"

Skywarp huffed and said no more.

"No," Thundercracker answered for him. "Starscream has always been Starscream. He built the seeker design for himself and then let Megatron use it to build his mindless armies."

"But... you two aren't mindless," Crystal insisted. "You're saying all the others are?"

Thundercracker frowned gravely. "Skywarp and I were the lucky ones. The rest, no matter how they seemed at first, their processors eventually broke down from the reformatting process and their personalities were erased." He paused with a far-off look on his face. "One day you would be talking to them, the next, they would just stand there, blank, emotionless, waiting for the next order."

"So he's not really anything to you, then," Crystal surmised. "You just look like Starscream. That's all."

"Well, he's not nothing," Thundercracker admitted. "He's still our air commander and he's kept us alive this long."

"And you want to do what you can to stay off his hit list," Skywarp added. "No one plots like Starscream does. My theory is the only reason Megatron has survived this long is simply because he IS Megatron."

"What about the idea that, deep down, Starscream really respects Megatron, so he subconsciously sabotages all his own plots against him?" Thundercracker offered.  
"That remains to be seen."

Crystal looked at the two of them, finally getting it. "You like him," she concluded. "That's why you tease him so much. Like he's your little brother or something."

"He's a lot older than we are," Thundercracker insisted. "And I don't just mean our current personalities. Starscream has been upgrading himself time and time again. He's a lot older than he tries to pass himself off to be."

"I think he's smarter than he makes himself out to be, too," Skywarp said. "That little metal weasel seems to be always looking for something. I want to be there when he finds it. Even if it blows us all back to the Matrix."

Crystal took a moment to process that. It was surprisingly deep and strangely loyal. Before she could ask another question, there was a heavy rumbling below them. Crystal had no idea what it was, but the seekers knew exactly what it meant. Megatron was on the move.

* * *

Megatron's half of the search party was having a far more interesting time getting around. They could constantly hear the heavy sounds of objects sliding in and out of place around them. Doors would constantly open and close, hallways would change and rotate.

"We don't seem to be getting anywhere," Megatron growled. He turned to his two officers for solutions.

Soundwave quietly computed to himself any practical response while Starscream consulted his data pad.

"Path behind: closed off. Path ahead: only logical choice," Soundwave warbled.

Megatron frowned. That wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"I've been keeping track of the directions we've been herded," Starscream said with a bland look towards Soundwave. "It seems these hallways are designed specifically to keep us out of a certain area."

Though he was often insufferable at times, Megatron was glad Starscream was with them. While Soundwave was unquestionably loyal and near flawless in battle maneuvers, he had no ingenuity for other situations. Whereas Starscream was constantly thinking outside the usual conventions and invaluable in odd situations such as this. Of course, Megatron would rather go to the pit before admitting this out loud.

"So whoever is on this asteroid is purposefully leading us away from something," Megatron concluded.

"If there's anyone here to begin with," Starscream countered. "I've yet to see any proof: rooms, consoles, switches that show any type of life resides in this asteroid."

"What are you suggesting, Starscream? That the hallways just move themselves?"

"Yes," the seeker insisted. "I'm suggesting that it's the asteroid itself that is moving the halls. That it must have some sort of intelligence, be it artificial or sentient. Remember how it let us in when I told Rumble to damage it?"

Megatron looked over his surroundings in a new light. "So you're saying we're inside a giant-"

Starscream nodded. "It may not be Cybertronian, but it's definitely a transformer."

Megatron was surprised at this. Though it had been millions of years since he had been in space, he knew the truth about the universe. Life on other planets was all about nature taking its course, about natural order. He had no illusions about Cybertron. It was a very unnatural planet. The odds against finding similar life, while not impossible in the infinite vastness of space, were still quite staggering.

"So what do you suggest, Starscream?"

"We find what it's hiding, of course. It's what we came here to do."

Megatron nodded and Starscream turned to the wall.

"Rumble, Frenzy, that one. And don't let anything stop you."

The two cassettes eagerly took to the appointed wall with their pile drivers and soon there was a good sized hole. But before anyone could go through, another wall slid into place, blocking their way.

"What the slag is this?" Frenzy demanded. "I ain't doing it again!"

"Step aside," Megatron ordered, charging up his fusion cannon. "Time for a different approach."

* * *

"Blitzwing, get back inside and put your weapon away," Astrotrain called out the shuttle. "You look like a paranoid aft head out there."

Blitzwing didn't adhere to the chiding right away. Something didn't feel right and he didn't like it at all. His finger kept twitching on the trigger.

"Would you just relax?"

"I can't," Blitzwing said as he backed towards the shuttle. "We've been without radio contact for too long."

"That doesn't mean a thing," Astrotrain insisted from the navigator's seat, his feet propped up on the controls. "It's gotta be the power source mucking up the equipment. Starscream said it was jamming his sensors before he left, remember?"

"I... guess." Blitzwing was still peering out of the shuttle, right and left.

"Besides, this baby has plenty of firepower." Astrotrain patted the controls. "It can take out anything that comes our way, so sit down and cool your systems. You're making me nervous just watching you."

Reluctantly, Blitzwing sat, but he kept his energy rifle in his lap.

Beneath the ship, however, there was very much cause to be paranoid as holes opened up in the ground. Large, serpentine cords slithered out and began to disassemble the outer armor and sneak into the shuttle.

* * *

"Guys, stop," Crystal called to the seekers in front of her. She pointed down where several old claw marks decorated the wall. They were made by Ravage the first time around.

"Great, we've been going around in circles," Skywarp grouched. "This place is making fools of us. If my tracking systems weren't being jammed, I'd just locate the ship on my radar and warp us back up there."

Thundercracker nodded. "Well we'll just have to change our strategy and make a new hallway."

As if understanding his intention, two lasers shot out and scanned both seekers from head to toe. Skywarp and his temper did not like that one bit. In retaliation, he raised his fist to the wall, intent on tearing right through with his bare hands.

On the opposite wall, two metal tentacles shot out and grabbed each of Skywarp's wrists. Another wrapped around his neck, yanking him backwards against the wall.

As Thundercracker ran to help, two walls slid down on either side of them, locking the seekers, Crystal and Ravage into a small, boxed-in area. Crystal looked from the walls to the struggling seekers as Ravage growled. This wasn't good.

* * *

Meanwhile, Megatron and his cohorts were having even more of an adventure. As soon as Megatron fired his fusion cannon, destroying the first wall, the asteroid went into action. Several cords snaked out of the wall, intent on capturing them.

"Looks like we ARE onto something," Starscream smirked as he fired his null rays. The cords fell lifeless as they were hit.

"Indeed," Megatron agreed. "Starscream, Soundwave, cover us. Rumble, Frenzy, continue forward."

The plan seemed to be working. Megatron and the cassettes tore right through the inner workings of the asteroid while the other two kept all attacks at bay. But the asteroid proved its ability to adapt to new situations. When the tentacles didn't work, laser weapons appeared from the walls and began firing.

The seasoned Decepticons,however, were right at home under heavy fire. Rumble and Frenzy, as well as Laserbeak, were dispatched to be moving targets while Megatron blasted through layer after protective layer.

In the end, the asteroid's defenses were no match for the violent, brute strength of the Decepticons. They tore through one last wall and found themselves in a large, circular room filled from ceiling to floor with screens, panels and all manner of hardware.

"Hey, why did it stop attacking?" Rumble demanded when everything fell quiet. He was still itching for more battle.

"Because my theory was right," Starscream said as he walked around. "We are indeed inside a somewhat intelligent life form. Just like you, Rumble."

"Yeah, just like- hey was that an insult?"

"It stopped attacking because we found its central processor," Starscream continued, ignoring him. "It doesn't want to risk damaging its own brain by starting a fight in here. We should be safe."

Megatron didn't look too comfortable with letting his guard down, but Starscream went to work right away, looking over the systems and digging for information.

"Soundwave, find out what is blocking our communications and shut it down."

"Acknowledged." Soundwave found a port and pulled out a wire from his wrist to plug into it.

After a moment of watching the walls, waiting for an attack, Megatron turned back to Starscream. "Well? Where is the energy supply?"

Starscream was frowning. "Once again, our new friend has revealed itself to be more than meets the optic. I thought its constant energy level was the result of a self-replenishing system. However, it seems its function is actually parasitic in nature."

"Meaning?" Megatron demanded.

"It gets its fuel from a host source. What's amazing about that is the parasite- this asteroid – is not physically connected to the source whatsoever. Yet, it is still about to take energy from it."

Megatron clenched his fists, energon boiling. "You idiot! You dragged us out here for nothing!"

"Wait, wait!" Starscream floundered, stepping back. "Mighty Megatron, you don't understand!" We can still use this to our benefit!"

"Speak quickly before I slag you for wasting so much time and energy!"

"There is something out there powering this entire asteroid and it has been doing so for years. It is still possibly an infinite power source," Starscream insisted. "And if we can figure out how it connects to this source, we can take it for ourselves without even having to find it."

Megatron stared him down for a few moments as he considered his options. Then he lowered his fusion cannon. "Do it."

Starscream's confidence instantly returned the moment the threat was rescinded.

"Just give me a few moments and I will have it all figured out." A small plug extended from his index finger and Starscream plugged himself into the main systems. His data pad projected a screen as he searched.

"This is fascinating," the seeker reported as information began to scroll on the screen. "The asteroid receives its energy wirelessly through what seems to be a wormhole, contained right inside this very vessel. I'm working to locate the information on its true power source."

"Excellent," Megatron said. "Show it on screen."

"Yes, my leader. Searching now."

More information flashed across the screen. Then Starscream let out an "Ah ha!" as he found what he was looking for.

"Behold, Megatron, our source."

Megatron leaned in closer. The schematics were of a large, circular object. At least, he thought it was just a schematic at first, until the screen showed the spherical object in action.

"It appears to be approaching something in space," Starscream narrated. A second, smaller sphere came on the screen.

"Is that a... planet?" Megatron asked. "If so, then that power source is massive."

Starscream smirked. "No wonder it has been able to power this asteroid. A source that size would power all of Cybertron."

Megatron's features spread into a wide grin as he pictured his triumphant return to his home planet. Nothing could stand in his way now. He would be known by the rest of history as the one who brought their planet back to its former glory. Cybertron was his!

Then, the power source began to react on the screen. Starscream and Megatron watched as the massive sphere appeared as if it were going to ram right into the smaller planet. Then it slowed before the two could touch and a claw-like mouth extended and began to chomp away at the planet, consuming it greedily, bit by bit.

The entire asteroid hummed as new energy was sent to it while the two Decepticons just stared. Neither was smirking now. Starscream felt like the energon was frozen in his fuel lines. There was an ancient story from long ago about a beast such as this whose name was barely whispered, let alone spoke aloud. The Monster of Space, the Ender of Life, the Great Omega. Starscream almost mouthed the nightmare's name.

"Unlimited power indeed!" Megatron growled, less intimidated than his air commander. "It gets its power from eating other planets! We can't bring this to Cybertron!"

Being yelled at brought Starscream back to reality and he checked his data. "The asteroid serves as a scout, finding planets for that thing to eat. If it continues on its current course it will go right through the space warp gate, putting it in a near collision course with Cybertron."

"Never," Megatron growled. "That monster will never know of Cybertron's existence. We will destroy this asteroid and the warp gate."

Starscream was not expecting the passion in his leader's voice, but agreed with his plan of action. "Yes Megatron, it will be done."

"Megatron," Soundwave announced. "Communication block disabled."

No sooner had he spoken than Blitzwing's frantic voice came over the radio.

"...frack is everyone? This is an emergency! Can you hear me? The shuttle is being attacked! It's being fragging torn apart!"

Everyone looked to their leader when they heard the transmission. Megatron was not happy. This mission had gone very bad very quickly.

* * *

Meanwhile, the other two seekers were still wrestling with the metallic cords. Skywarp was bound by his legs, arms and neck while Thundercracker tried to pry the cords off. He didn't dare shoot at them for fear of hitting his wing mate. One of the cords decided Skywarp was better left in pieces and began probing through the armor.

Skywarp let out a sharp cry as his outer armor was pried apart at the knee. "Thundercracker! It's taking me apart! My leg!"

Thundercracker grabbed at the offending tentacle that was bent on dislocating the knee from the leg. Ravage was on the other side of Skywarp, gnawing ineffectively at one of the cords.

Crystal crouched by the wall where one cord was snaking out and pulled out her tools. She removed a link of armor and cut at the vulnerable cable underneath. The cord fell lifeless to the floor.

Skywarp signed in relief when his knee was no longer in immediate danger. Crystal moved to the other side and did the same thing with a second cord.

"I knew there was a reason we brought you along," he quipped.

"Megatron to Skywarp and Thundercracker, get back to the ship immediately," Megatron's voice bellowed over the radio.

Skywarp grinned, pulling away when the second cord dropped. That gave him enough leeway that he could yank himself free from the others.

"Sounds like Megs is having the same problems we are. With the radios running, so is my guidance radar. Ravage, transform. Let's get out of here."

The feline immediately folded up into his cassette form and Skywarp tucked him away in his cockpit. Then he turned to Crystal.

"Okay, let's warp back to the ship."

Crystal looked dubious as Skywarp picked her up in one arm. "You sure you can warp all three of us at once?"

Skywarp chuckled. "Itty bitty, you hardly count as one."

He put an arm around Thundercracker's shoulders and they all disappeared. A split second later, they were inside the shuttle again. Ravage instantly sprang out, growling. There were sounds of laser fire outside.

The Decepticons ran outside, weapons ready. Crystal huddled in the entranceway, unsure what to do. There were several cords slowly taking the shuttle apart from the outside and in. When one cord was destroyed, two more would take its place. It was a losing battle, but they were not allowed to give up. If they lost the shuttle, they would be stranded until the asteroid picked them apart as well.

A spot on the ground right outside the shuttle grew strangely hot, then exploded outward. Out of the new hole crawled Megatron, cannon smoking, with the rest of his Decepticons behind him. The Decepticon leader instantly opened an attack on the forest of tentacles while Starscream and Soundwave ran for the ship to initiate a retreat.

"Decepticons! Everyone back to the ship!" Megatron ordered. There was no time to launch an attack on the asteroid itself, no matter its primary purpose. Priority one, for now, was to get off the surface in one piece.

The other Decepticons did not have to be told twice. Everyone turned and ran for the shuttle as Megatron fired a few parting shots before fleeing himself.

"Starscream, what's the status of the ship? Can we take off?"

The red seeker typed furiously at the controls.

"The ship is too damaged. The thrusters are completely gone. We'll have to take the emergency pod, provided that is still intact."

"Time to negate asteroid: insufficient," Soundwave reminded them.

"Maybe not," Starscream said. "I can set up this whole ship to blow, taking the asteroid with it. It lacks finesse, but it would be effective."

"Do it," Megatron ordered.

One of the cords broke through the window to get to them and started taking the ship apart from the front.

"Decepticons, to the escape pod, now!"

All turned and fled to the emergency auxiliary ship stationed near the back of the shuttle. While quite a bit smaller, it was designed to hold an entire crew, so all the Decepticons fit. Soundwave confirmed that it was still in working order. Though the tentacles were getting closer, so it wouldn't be working for too much longer.

"Go! Go, go, go!" Starscream cried as he ran in, the last. "It will blow any minute!"

"Why didn't you give us ample time to launch?" Megatron demanded.

"Tell that to those things tearing up the control panel," Starscream shot back. "If it's taken apart before the countdown ends, there won't be an explosion. "

Now was definitely not the time to argue the point. Megatron turned to Soundwave. "Launch the pod! Get us out of here now!"

Soundwave nodded and gave the command to the console, but it flashed with an emergency warning. By now, the cords could be seen taking apart the shuttle around the pod.

"Damage to launch controls," Soundwave announced. "External repairs required."

Megatron knew exactly what to do. He didn't bring that little, pink baggage for nothing. But before he could even order it to sacrifice itself for them, it was already out the door.

Megatron grinned, pleased at Crystal. "A very noble sacrifice. You could do no greater act than give your existence for the Decepticon cause."

From outside the pod, Crystal turned and gave him her most flat, unimpressed look. "Fuck you."

Megatron's optics widened in surprise. His pleased look was gone as Crystal shut the hatch in his face.

She scrambled around the pod, dodging wandering cords, trying to find out what prevented the launch. If it was a programming issue, they were still screwed. Especially since she had no idea how long Starscream gave them until the whole ship exploded.

She looked around frantically for something, anything that would give her a clue about what to do. Then she saw it on the wall: so blatant, she wondered if it was even real. A large, red button with the words over it reading "Emergency Manual Launch."

Crystal stared at it. It couldn't be that easy.

The shuttle was coming apart around her and she slapped the button with her palm. The pod's thrusters ignited and it shot out into space. It was nothing but another light in the starry background in seconds.

Crystal watched it go, feeling strangely detached from the situation. Left alone with the ship crumbling around her, she felt nothing in her very last moments. Down the hall, there was a countdown on the screen while the blind tentacles continued to search, as if knowing the ship contained the tools of its destruction. The screen continued to count.

Ten seconds. That was all she had left in the world. Very few could say they could count down the end of their lives to the second.

Nine. She thought she would feel something more: sadness, regret, fear. But it was like watching the whole thing outside her body. She didn't feel anything at all.

Eight seconds. She thought of her planet. It was so far away from here, it wouldn't even feel the force of this explosion. What a lonely thought.

Seven. She thought of the people on Earth. They would never know this kind of world existed out here. They would never know she was thinking of them.

Six seconds.

On Earth, a sudden cool breeze rushed over an otherwise hot and breezeless summer day. Prowl looked up when the wind chimes were blown by an invisible hand. That was strange.

Five.

Jazz raised his head when he felt the breeze as well. It seemed to get into the wound on his chest and irritate it. He scratched at it, feeling cold for some reason.

Four.

Sunstreaker looked up from his etching when he heard a sudden crash. No one else was in the room, but somehow, the crystal statue that had once belonged to his friend had fallen from its shelf and shattered on the floor.

Three seconds. It was nearly over. Crystal accepted it. She was done. But just as that thought entered her mind, she was suddenly aware someone had appeared behind her.

Two.

Arms wrapped around her and she disappeared.

One.

Starscream watched the explosion from the window of the escape pod. It engulfed the shuttle, then spread to the rest of the asteroid, devouring it completely. A second, inner explosion sent pieces of it flying in all directions. Fall out from the blast raced out towards them, making the pod shudder and shake. Then it was over and Starscream still stared out the window.

It was an unfamiliar feeling of triumph. They had done it to save their planet. He, Starscream, had acted to save Cybertron. There had been a time long ago when he had not cared for his home planet at all. How time could change things.

"Skywarp?" Thundercracker called, looking around the pod. "Where did he- oh no!" He ran to the window next to Starscream. "That moron! Why did he do that?"

"What happened?" Megatron asked, not in the mood for another crisis.

"Skywarp, I think he went back there for that-" Thundercracker paused. That little creature that he kept protecting. Did Skywarp do it because of him? Didn't that dope realize it wasn't worth risking his life for?

"You're right; that was very stupid of him," Megatron confirmed.

"If he got caught in the blast while he was warping, it could have thrown his trajectory off to anywhere," Starscream said. "Most likely, however, it probably destroyed him."

Thundercracker clenched his jaw as he stared out the window. That idiot.

"Soundwave," Megatron ordered. "Scan for Skywarp's energy signature in the debris."

Soundwave nodded and got right to work. He scanned for a long time, longer than normal. "No energy signature detected."

Megatron shook his head. "Then there's nothing that can be done. Soundwave, set a course for the warp gate. We're going home, to Cybertron."

Thundercracker lowered his head. This was not how he pictured their return. It wouldn't be the same without Skywarp.

* * *

Crystal slowly onlined, her optics fuzzy and all her systems feeling like strange currents of electricity were coursing through her muscle cables. It did not feel right at all. However, that wasn't the first thought on her mind.

"I-I'm still alive!" She told herself, looking at her body. "I'm still whole! I'm alive!"

Then she looked around herself and wished she weren't. It was the very thing she never wanted. She was free-floating with nothing but countless miles of space around her in all directions. No one who had ever been lost really understood what lost was until they had been lost and alone in space.

Helplessness could only be indulged for a moment. She wasn't completely alone. Skywarp's body lay beside her. He was outputting some sort of weird energy which was the cause of the strange bursts she was feeling in her own circuits. He still had an arm around her, keeping them in contact.

There was a strange halo of purple glowing around him. The two of them kept shifting from solid to semi-transparent. Crystal was no expert on warping, but her instincts told her she would want to keep in contact with him until he stabilized. Which, she hoped, would be soon. Skywarp was still offline.

As carefully as she could, Crystal opened his chest panels to look at the damage. It wasn't easy to make her fingers do exactly what she wanted with his warp energy fluctuating into her body. She could see there were quite a few wires that were completely burnt to a crisp. In her hip compartment were a few extra wires for just such an occasion. They were meant for console repair, not to go into transformer bodies, but they would have to do for now.

As she began to replace wires, Crystal prayed she could get the seeker online. She couldn't be left out here alone; she just couldn't handle that after the day she had.

Lo and behold, as she worked to repair him, Skywarp's optics flickered back to life.

"What—what's going on?" he asked. His voice sounded strange with the warp energy running unchecked through his systems. Skywarp recognized the problem instantly and willed his systems back to normal. Now both of them were stable and solid again.

"That's better. Looks like I caught part of that explosion when I warped and it messed up my systems. Boy Thundercracker is going to yell at me. He always gets after me for waiting until the last second."

"Do I even want to ask why you came back for me in the first place?" Crystal said.

Skywarp looked slightly uncomfortable with that question. "Uh, yeah. Let's leave that for another time until we get out of here."

"I won't argue with that," she agreed. "Uh... CAN you get us out of here?"

Skywarp was quiet for a moment as he checked all his guidance systems and radar. "I can't pick up the escape pod. They probably couldn't find my signature with my warp field unstable. I bet they've already gone through the warp gate."

"Warp gate?"

"Yeah, I remember we were near one. It's like a shortcut through space."

"Can we go through it without a ship?" Crystal worried.

"We can," Skywarp insisted. He let go of her and transformed into his jet mode. "Get on and hold on tight. Don't let go of me or you'll get left behind."

Crystal did not need to be told twice. She clung to that black jet like her life depended on it. Skywarp ignited his thrusters and then warped forward.

He didn't have the same kind of warping power as the Autobot shuttle did, but he could still warp them both a good distance through space. Luckily, thanks to all the over-energizing he had done previously, he had plenty of energy reserves for the trip. Also, their destination wasn't too far away.

Crystal kept switching off her optics when Skywarp warped through space. She really didn't like the sensation of it. Skywarp could tell her dislike for it by the way she clutched him more tightly. But when the space warp gate came into view, Crystal couldn't help but stare.

It was massive. It looked big enough to accommodate a whole fleet of large star ships. They were merely a drop in the ocean compared to it. The gate was composed of two metal rings, one within the other, rotating in opposite directions. In the middle, a cloudy storm seemed trapped within the two rings.

"Get ready," Skywarp warned her as they floated nearer to the gate. "This is going to be a big one."

Crystal wanted to reach out and touch the stormy substance within, but upon the warning, she gripped the seeker tighter. The gate suddenly grabbed them and pulled them in. Crystal was glad for the warning. The pull was so strong, it felt like she left half of herself back at the entrance.

Thankfully, it only lasted a few seconds and then the gate that was in front of them was suddenly behind them.

"Wow, that was a rush."

"Yeah, well, just keep holding on," Skywarp said. "We've got a few more jumps to go."

Crystal cut back a few whimpers that threatened to come out as Skywarp warped again through space. When this was over, she never ever wanted to warp again, not even at the risk of her own life. The next explosion she was in, the Decepticon could just leave her there.

"Sweet Primus, there it is," Skywarp said, causing Crystal to flick on her optics again.

Below them floated a planet, one like Crystal had never seen before. There was nothing natural about it. No clouds, no atmosphere to blanket it. Parts of it were pitch black while others glowed with millions of lights.

"That's... Cybertron?" Crystal guessed.

"Sure is. Hold on for one more warp."

Crystal shut off her optics and felt the sickening jerk of time and space being pulled around her, then they were hovering with Skywarp's thrusters on. She could feel the familiar pull of gravity again as Skywarp slowly landed on the metal surface.

He landed and she instantly got off and looked around with wide optics. Everything around her was metal. There were tall spires above her and deep chasms below her. Layers built upon layers of streets and buildings. It was so alien it felt almost magical and she couldn't stop looking at it. This was Cybertron. This was where the Autobots had meant for her to eventually live. This was going to be her new home.

Skywarp wasn't sure which part of the planet they were on yet. He was just as eager as Crystal to get something solid under his feet. Plus his systems really needed a break. They were threatening to overheat. Once he had a few minutes to situate himself, he would figure out where the nearest Decepticon stronghold was and go from there. For now he just stood, hands on hips, enjoying the surroundings. Primus, it was good to be back on his home planet. War-torn and tattered, it was still home and there was no other place like it.

The seeker felt the laser pierce his wing before he realized he had been fired upon. He stupidly looked at the smoking hole in his wing. He had been so distracted by being home at last, he forgot to keep his guard up.

Behind him, he heard a body collapse. Crystal has been standing behind his wingspan, looking in the opposite direction. She just happened to be turning toward him when the attack came. The laser went through Skywarp's thin wing and right through her optic, blowing off part of her head. Her body instantly crashed lifelessly to the ground.

For some reason, seeing that small body damaged made Skywarp angrier than after his own injury. He spun around, optics and weapons ablaze. The attack had come from a single Autobot, brightly colored red and yellow. He appeared quite young and was very surprised at the strength of the retaliation against him.

Hot Rod had just been traveling one of the roads between two of the Autobot bases, minding his own business. Ultra Magnus insisted Autobots travel in groups of at least two, but Hot Rod believed he was fast enough to get from point A to point B without any problems. That was when he noticed the Decepticon aircraft descending toward the ground.

It was a peculiar design, but then again, the Decepticons were always experimenting with their own kind, trying to upgrade themselves for faster flight and heavier firepower. It still wore the purple insignia and that was all Hot Rod needed to know.

He snuck carefully toward the seeker, making sure he wasn't detected, and waited for the right time to pull the trigger. Internally, he was glad Ultra Magnus and Kup weren't around to see his horrible shot. He had been aiming for the chest, but all he got was a wing. Afterward, Hot Rod could have sworn he saw something smaller fall down behind the seeker. But there was no time to make sure; the Decepticon had turned on him, unleashing the full strength of his fire power. This one wasn't one of the mindless seekers. This one was sentient and it had a temper.

Hot Rod had no choice but to transform and flee from the scene.

Skywarp stopped his attack once the Autobot left. There was no point spending time chasing after him. He needed to get back to Decepticon territory and report back to Megatron.

Walking back to Crystal's damaged and lifeless body, Skywarp stared at it for a long time. Having gone this far, there was only one thing to do.

* * *

Shockwave was both surprised and ill-prepared to receive Megatron on his doorstep. In a beat-up Autobot escape pod, no less. He also found his leader's presence inconvenient. Not that the glorious Megatron wasn't allowed to go where he pleased, be it Cybertron or anywhere else in the galaxy, but he usually gave prior notice. Nothing irked Shockwave more than having the day's details planned out and then having something unscheduled break his routine. And this would most definitely throw off his entire day.

Shockwave stepped out of Darkmount tower with two other Decepticons as Megatron exited the pod.

"Lord Megatron, I did not receive any notice you were coming," Shockwave said, trying to disguise any accusation in his voice. "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?"

Megatron ignored the impudence of the question. While he sometimes wondered if there were other reasons Shockwave didn't like being caught off guard, he also knew how the purple Decepticon was about sticking to his schedule.

"There were unforeseen circumstances," Megatron said. He looked at the two Decepticons, both tall and heavily built, standing on either side of Shockwave. Megatron did not recognize them. "I will discuss that matter with you later. Privately."

"Agreed," Shockwave nodded. "Do any of your party require medical attention?"

Megatron looked back at Soundwave. "Negative," he responded. "No damage requiring medical personnel to report."

Starscream wandered off toward his old quarters, no doubt to go sulk about the botched mission. Soon, the rest of Megatron's team was dismissed to refuel and let their self-repair systems tend to any minor dings and scratches.

Megatron walked through Darkmount, the Decepticon stronghold, with Shockwave at his side. Soundwave brought up the rear as they traveled to a meeting room where they could confer about what had recently transpired.

"Who were those two Decepticons with you earlier?" Megatron asked. "I do not recognize them."

"Ransack and Beatback are my field lieutenants," Shockwave replied as he opened the door to a meeting room. "They were mere low-ranking soldiers when you crashed on that planet Earth. The officers you took with you left many holes that needed to be filled by lower-ranking Decepticons. Those two have proven their worth by filling in the gaps time after time and have worked their way through the ranks. Both triple changers, they have superior skills as land and air supervisors. They have proven themselves invaluable to me."

The door closed behind the three Decepticons and Shockwave locked it so they could continue to converse in private.

"Yes, but are they trustworthy?" Megatron asked.

"You know my paranoia toward letting newcomers into the inner circle rivals your own, Megatron. But Ransack and Beatback have shown efficiency and ferocity on the battlefield time and time again. I believe their loyalties lie with the Decepticon cause, whether or not we are the ones leading it."

"That is acceptable," Megatron nodded as he seated himself at the large meeting table. Soundwave took a seat next to him. "But for now, Shockwave, this information I am about to give to you does not go past this room."

Once Shockwave accepted the terms, Megatron relayed all that had happened out in space and the information he had learned. Shockwave sat quietly, listening to it from start to finish. He didn't have anything to say until Megatron proposed the next course of action.

"Destroy the space warp gate?" he demanded, jumping to his feet. "Megatron, I must advise against that. Many nearby planets use that warp gate for trade across the galaxy, including Cybertron."

Megatron slammed his fist on the table. "I don't care about your trade negotiations, Shockwave! The gate must come down for the sake of Cybertron!"

Shockwave made a long-suffering noise. "Lord Megatron, can you even be sure what you saw is really out there? And even if so, that it has targeted Cybertron? Perhaps your information is false."

"Information, not mistaken," Soundwave said without being questioned. "Several witnesses present."

"I don't really care whether you trust our findings," Megatron growled. "I am the leader of the Decepticons and you will do as I say. And I say Cybertron is mine and no beast or god may have it! That takes full precedence over your trade negotiations, Shockwave."

The longtime overseer of the Cybertronian Decepticons clenched his single fist so hard it shook. This did not escape Megatron's notice. He looked at him as if daring him to disagree with his orders. Finally, Shockwave's hand fell limp again as he gave in.

But before he could say anything, Shockwave's communicator came to life.

"Commander Shockwave, a seeker has entered Darkmount and is requesting to see Lord Megatron."

"One of the seeker drones?" Shockwave asked. It was highly illogical that any of the drones would take the initiative to do anything himself, unless put up to it by a supervising officer. Maybe it was malfunctioning.

"Which serial number is it?"

"He says his name is Skywarp, sir."

Upon hearing that, Megatron stood. That particular seeker was one of his.

* * *

Thundercracker could not put into words how relieved he was to hear that Skywarp had returned to Cybertron on his own and in one piece. Not that he was allowed to voice his feelings in public. That kind of display would be frowned upon by his commanders. Skywarp wasn't prone to sentimentality either, even in private. Though he did enjoy the attention when his fellow Decepticons marveled at his death-defying return.

"You risked your spark foolishly today, Skywarp," Megatron told him. "I am not pleased."

Skywarp's confident grin instantly disappeared. "I figured you wouldn't want to lose your property." The strange object he had slung over his shoulder was removed and flung to the ground.  
Shockwave actually stepped back at the sight of the unfamiliar creature. Part of its head was missing and its remaining optic was black.

"Unfortunately, the Autobots got her before I could get her back to the base," Skywarp continued, hands on his hips. He actually looked a little disappointed. It made Thundercracker curious.

"Her?" Shockwave repeated, wondering if he had heard correctly.

"Her-it, you know, whatever," Skywarp waved it off.

"What is it?" Shockwave got closer again, inspecting the body with interest.

"Just some... thing we took from the Autobots on Earth. Nothing important," Megatron said, looking pointedly at Skywarp. "Certainly not important enough to risk a soldier for."

Skywarp shrugged. What was done could not be undone.

"New technology? From Earth?" Shockwave said. "Might I examine it, Lord Megatron? Since it is no longer of any use to you."

"Do what you wish with it, then scrap it and get rid of it."

Shockwave nodded and gently picked up the creation so as not to damage the Earth circuitry further.

Megatron frowned at his actions. Shockwave would certainly not find anything more than what his own officers had discovered. It was a scientific dead end. If Shockwave wanted to examine something truly from Earth, Megatron should have packed the remains of Nightbird with him. Megatron paused as an idle thought wandered into his processor.

Megatron suddenly stiffened and turned to look where Shockwave had gone. He suddenly had a very intriguing idea.

* * *

Shockwave had removed the chest armor of his new toy and was beginning to become absorbed in studying its inner workings when Megatron came into his lab.

"I have changed my mind," the Decepticon leader announced. "When you are finished poking and prodding around, I want you to rebuild it to these specifications." He placed a data pad on the table.

Shockwave paused. His irritation at the interruption would remain secret, as most of his emotions did. He picked up the data pad and skimmed through the list. "This will be very difficult to do with a body like this. I cannot guarantee the results will be satisfactory."

"You always manage to pleasantly surprise me, Shockwave," Megatron insisted with a smile. "I'm sure you will figure out a way."

Shockwave's shoulders slumped just a tiny bit. "If it is your wish, Megatron, I will do my utmost."

"Good." Megatron turned to go, then remembered the last thing the little creation said to him. He had no idea what it meant in the Earth language, but he was sure it was meant to be an insult and that angered him.

"One more thing, Shockwave. Remove its vocal processor. I don't want to hear a sound from it ever again."

"As you command, Megatron."

Satisfied, the Decepticon leader quit the room and Shockwave was, once again, alone with his new project. It had curious workmanship indeed. Obviously built by Cybertronians, it appeared to be mismatched and composed of whatever was lying around. It was so base and simple that it would be quite a chore making any additions to Megatron's specifications. And how he expected it to be of any use without a spark was baffling. What was this creation like before it was damaged?

Luckily, Shockwave did love a challenge and any opportunity to show off his skills. He would show Megatron exactly what he could do.

The door to his lab opened a second time while he documented his findings. Shockwave looked up to see Starscream now standing before him.

"I caught wind of Megatron's orders for you. I have a few specifics for it myself," Starscream held out a second data pad.

Shockwave did not accept it. "Your alterations cannot be considered unless Megatron gives approv-"

"Megatron has approved it!" Starscream cut him off sharply. "The Earth creation will report under me. Therefore it must be fit to fly in my armada. That isn't too confusing for you, is it, Shockwave?"

The purple Decepticon stared at Starscream's haughty smirk. Shockwave had not missed the seeker while he was gone.

"Very well," Shockwave reluctantly took the data pad from him. "Barring any more interruptions, I will have it completed as soon as I am able."

Starscream continued to smile as he looked down at the lifeless body. One black optic stared back at him. "Good. I'm eager to see what you can come up with."


	2. Chapter 2: Below the Surface

Thank you all again for the great support of this series and this new story. All your wonderful reviews just keep my fueled and excited to keep giving you new chapters. For those who respond without an account, many many thanks for all your wonderful thoughts. I wish I could thank you individually, but they are very much appreciated. Those who give short reviews, sometimes I may not reply because I can't think of anything in reply that would be worth your time to read. But I appreciate each and every comment I get and I read them often to keep me pumped for writing. So thanks everyone!

Rising Generations

Chapter Two: Below the Surface

"Bee!" Clarissa ran over to the yellow Autobot when she saw him step around the volcano.

"Hey, Clarissa. I haven't seen you in a while," Bumblebee greeted her in return. The more he got to know her the more he liked this human girl whose smile was always far brighter than the dark clothes she wore. Though she now had a metal stud in her lip; that was new.

"Yeah, that's because stupid Danny won't ever take me to come see you," she pouted.

"Oh? Daniel's here with you?"

Clarissa motioned behind her.

Daniel slowly trudged up to them, slouching and looking unimpressed. "Hey."

"So it's Danny now, is it?" Bumblebee greeted him brightly.

The teenager gave a halfhearted shrug.

"Chatty and cheerful as always, I see," the Autobot grinned.

"Bee." Clarissa grabbed his hand. "Danny says you're going to be transferred to Cybertron. That's so tragic!"

"Oh, heh, yeah," Bumblebee admitted sheepishly. He didn't want the girl or anyone to put up a fuss about it. He didn't like to see anyone sad. "I'm going back home for a bit. But it's not for almost two weeks. We can have some fun until then."

Clarissa still looked sad. "When are you coming back?"

His smile fell for a little bit before he was able to pull it back up. "I'm not sure yet, but it shouldn't be too long. We're just moving a lot of stuff and Autobots around and Prime needs help."

Clarissa hugged him around his middle. "I'm going to miss you, Bee. I hope you come back soon."

"What about me?" Suddenly Sideswipe was right next to them, his face low, near the girl and the smaller Autobot.

"I don't care about you, Sideswipe. I love Bumblebee!"

"But I turn into a Lamborghini!"

Clarissa ignored him and grabbed Bumblebee's hand, pulling him forward. "Show me your base. I haven't seen it yet."

Sideswipe followed after them, still insisting he was still the coolest Autobot and that Clarissa should dig him because chicks dig sports cars.

The Autobot base was busier than it had ever been, especially now that the prior ban of all humans had been revoked. The Autobots had not entertained any human guests since November of the previous year, all because of a certain human-turned-robot who had been living with them.

Those who were supervising her care suggested it might be best to keep her away from human contact until she expressed a desire to see her kind again, or possibly when she was no longer on Earth and living her life as a Cybertronian. Crystal herself had expressed concern about humans learning of her existence, so the ban had stayed in place as long as she lived there.

Spike and Carly knew some of the details, merely because they usually visited the Autobots at least a few times a month. They had deserved some kind of explanation as to why they were no longer allowed over. Daniel had no idea anything was going on at all. He may have crawled the halls of the Ark as a toddler, but as a super-cool teenager, he no longer cared to go to the place his parents liked to hang out. It was like visiting grandma to him. The only reason he was there now was because Clarissa was not as jaded by a childhood full of talking alien robots.

Aside from showing the visiting teenagers around the base, there was much to do. It had been two weeks since the Autobots had invaded the Nemesis and completely destroyed it. The remaining Decepticons were scattered. Without leadership, they went back to their old tricks, stealing energy where they could find it. The Autobots did their best to prevent what damage they could, but the Decepticons were hardly the force on Earth they used to be. They were no longer unified. The groups split up and went their separate ways, everyone out for themselves. Now they were nothing more than a nuisance.

The lack of unity and communication on the Decepticons' part provided an opportunity for the Autobots. The Decepticon space bridge was left unguarded, leaving the Autobots to commandeer it for themselves. It was now completely under Autobot control and scientists on Cybertron were working around the clock to build a complementary space bridge in Autobot territory. When that was complete, the transferring of Autobots between Earth and Cybertron would commence.

For Optimus Prime, it wasn't a day too soon, especially after what had happened. The air still stung of tragedy here, even now that they given Crystal's spirit a proper farewell. Optimus needed to get a few of his officers away from this place. Eventually, he would like to get all the original Autobots who crashed with the Ark off this planet. They needed to go home. But it couldn't be done all at once. It had to be a gradual process.

Currently, the names on the transfer roster were himself, Prowl, Jazz, Ratchet, the twins, Brawn, Ironhide, Mirage and Bumblebee. There would be a transition period where Ultra Magnus would show the officers around and get the troops used to Optimus Prime's leadership again before Ultra Magnus took a group of troops down to the Earth base.

While there were no high-ranking officers at the Ark, Red Alert would be left in charge. He wasn't too happy about that. The Autobot knew how to do his job well, but the stress of so much responsibility didn't sit well on his shoulders. Still, Prowl insisted that he could do it. Hound was made his second. Smokescreen was forbidden to touch his special projects during that time, freeing him to keep an eye on Decepticon activity. That made Red Alert feel a little better. To match the two gestalt teams still running around, both the Protectobots and the Arielbots were to be transferred before Optimus and his team left for Cybertron.

There was still much to do to prepare for a transfer of this magnitude, but everything was proceeding on schedule. Optimus had both Prowl and Jazz to thank for that. They really seemed to want to go home and both were putting in extra hours to make sure it all ran as smoothly as possible.

Later that afternoon, Optimus looked up as Bumblebee poked his head in his office.

"Hey Prime, you got a minute?"

Optimus looked over all the paperwork he still needed to send to Ultra Magnus. "Oh yes, a break from this would be nice. What can I do for you?"

Bumblebee looked a little hesitant to speak as he came in, fiddling with his fingers. "Well, I was kinda wondering if you wouldn't mind if I...didn't get transferred?"

"Oh? Why is that?"

"Well, you know, Daniel will be in college in a year and I haven't been able to spend time with the family lately. I just don't want to miss anything."

Optimus stood and walked around his desk, placing a large hand on the Autobot's head.

"Bumblebee, I know your spark now lies with Earth and the people here. I will not force you to go, but I would like to have you there in the beginning. You have always kept me on the right path, and I would like to have your wisdom during this transition, my friend. If you come with me, I promise I will return you to Earth as soon as I am able to. But again, the choice is up to you."

Bumblebee looked to his leader, the one he used to think he would follow to the ends of the galaxy and back. They had been through so much together. But both of them knew Bumblebee had found a new loyalty now and each of them could accept that. However, there was something in Prime's voice that made him take notice. Unspoken words seem to say _'Come with me, it may be the last time we will see each other.'_

Bumblebee listened. "Okay Prime, you can count me in."

* * *

Cybertron

Iacon, though a city, was also the Autobot's main base of operations. Through many years and wars, it remained a busy hub of lights and activity, despite the darkness and decay of several sectors around it. While the planet had seen battle far heavier than what it was experiencing now, there were still acres and acres of damage across all territories and no resources for repairs. Each faction had learned to work with what they had.

With its tall walls and heavy security, Iacon was one of the safest stations on the planet. Security had even tightened lately due to reports from Autobot scouts of increased Decepticon activity and the possible arrival of some of Megatron's elite warriors. Whether Megatron had arrived with them had yet to be determined, but they were not taking chances.  
Any unidentified craft, air or ground, was shot to disable on sight. All roads into Iacon had spark sensors. A bot had to be a registered soldier of the Autobot army to drive into Iacon if he did not want to be shot by the automated defense systems.

It was similar in the sky. Anything that wasn't identified and somehow made it past the watch tower still had to fool the scanners. If it had a spark, it would be picked up. Iacon was nearly impregnable.

And yet, as a cargo ship flew low toward the landing pad, something dark huddled near the thrusters on the ship's underbelly. The watch tower didn't register the extra passenger clinging to the bottom. The cargo ship flew below the tower toward the bottom landing dock, near the storage warehouses. Before landing, it glided past the sensors, which picked up no extra spark or energy signature. All seemed in order.

As several Autobots approached the ship to help unload it, however, something dark slunk by the back wall in the shadows. It crept among boxes and buildings toward the main tower of Iacon's center. It was smaller than the massive soldiers who prowled the outer compounds. None of them were looking for moving shadows, so it was not noticed.

The guards at the entrance to the central tower stood at attention, fully armed and optics never ceasing to scan their surroundings: left, then right, then back again. But they, too, were not expecting trouble and were too reliant on the spark scanners, which did not pick up the dark phantom crawling the wall above them. It crept, unnoticed through the main doors from above.  
Using its special ability, the dark figure was able to cling magnetically to the metal walls like a gecko. Its agile frame allowed it to flatten itself and crawl along the ceiling.

Inside the tower, it was easy to hide. The walls and floors were flat and clean to allow detection of intruders, but the lights were far between and dimmed to conserve energy. The ceiling was a crawling network of pipes and cables, giving the intruder the perfect camouflage to continue without detection, even as Autobots walked right under it. The figure stayed hidden high above them in the ceiling.

The intruder checked its internal map to guide it to its destination. To the left was the elevator. Above the door was a small hole in the wall that allowed the pipes and cables to go right into the elevator shaft and climb it neatly to the next level. The dark-colored body followed their path. With magnetized hands and feet, it scaled the shaft until it found the floor it wanted and then crawled back in among the pipes again.

It scuttled down the hall and around a corner, stopping short as all the pipes slipped up into the ceiling, leaving the new hallway smooth on all sides. That, coupled with the bright lights, made it impossible for the dark figure to hide. It would have to move forward without the benefit of concealment. But it still had a few tricks to play.

After checking to see that no one was coming, it slunk down to the light switch and turned off the lights before breaking the panel, preventing anyone from turning them back on. It was more comfortable in the shadows and now it could move more freely. Only the tiny, blue safety lights lining the floor glowed now.

The figure dropped down soundlessly from the ceiling and hugged the wall, peering down the next corner. Its target was near. The mission was almost at hand.

"Well, what do we have here?" A deep, male voice asked.

The figure froze, slowly looking backwards. It hadn't anticipated being found so quickly. Light blue optics watched it in the dark. They belonged to a fairly large and heavily-built Autobot.  
"You certainly got in pretty far," Springer said, arms crossed over his chest. "Do you want to identify yourself and tell me what you're doing here?"

He squinted at the figure, trying to get his optics to focus on it. It was difficult with the emergency lights. His regular and night vision could only pick up the same fuzzy picture. The bot seemed small, whoever it was, but Springer wasn't going to underestimate it until he could get a clearer picture of what he was up against.

It remained crouched near the wall, slowly turning to look at him. Springer couldn't even make out optics. The intruder must be using night vision. It said nothing.

"You have three seconds to identify yourself," Springer announced. "Or we're going to have some problems."

The figure stood up straight and moved to the middle of the hall, its stance aggressive. It continued to remain silent.

"I see. I suppose we'll have to do it the hard way, then." Springer reached over his shoulder and pulled out his sword. He also had a blaster on him, but he preferred this sort of weapon in close combat. He was one of the few warriors on either side who would choose such a weapon. When he pulled out the large blade, it usually got some sort of reaction from his opponent. This time, however, the intruder didn't even move.

Then its optics powered on: a single red optic band. Red usually meant Decepticon. Springer wasn't surprised. He brandished his sword. In response, the other bot flicked out twin blades from its forearms. They folded out with a snap, the blades jutting out sharply, reaching up to her shoulders.

The blades energized, glowing yellow and crackling with energy. The light revealed the silhouette of the figure. It was thin, almost unnaturally so, and sharp from top to bottom. Springer had never seen anything like it.

"Primus..."

Without making a sound, the intruder rushed him, flicking off the blades and plunging them into the dimness again. Springer was trying to adjust his optics when the yellow flicked on again, mere inches from his face. Springer managed to move his sword at the last second, his blade colliding with the intruder's before they could rip his head apart.

His aggressor hovered there for a moment, letting Springer take all its weight. It hardly weighed anything at all. In the yellow glow, he could see the purple Decepticon symbol on the intruder's chest before he threw his attacker off.

The Decepticon flipped gracefully backwards and landed in a crouch. It pressed low to the ground, making it a harder target to attack. Springer was no fool. He was not going after that defensive stance. He waited for the Decepticon to attack again.

When it saw Springer wasn't going to move, it rushed him again. Once again, the blades were flicked off to momentarily plunge him in darkness. This time, the Decepticon raced for his ankles. Springer felt a slice in the armor of his leg a second after the blades powered back up. He jumped and kicked as if there was a snake on the floor. His foot collided with something solid and he heard the body slide across the floor into the wall.

Springer smirked in satisfaction as he walked over to the stunned Decepticon. "You're fast, I'll give you that. But no lightweight is going to take out any Autobot around here. What were the Decepticons thinking, sending you?"

He raised his blade toward the intruder, eying it in the dark. Then he felt the Decepticon raise the shield that had allowed it to sneak so far into the base. With the spark shield lowered, Springer could finally pick up the Decepticon's signature. He was taken aback when the signature caused a pleasant tingle in his own spark. It was something he hadn't felt for a long time. It caused him to still his weapon.

"You... you're female." There was awe in his voice as he wandered closer. Suddenly, he wanted a really good look at his opponent.

That was the reaction she had been hoping for. The moment he was distracted, she sprang up, blades hot, and slashed them in his face so quickly, it was just a blur of yellow. Springer scrambled to defend himself, holding up his sword to protect his face, but he was unsteady after being caught by surprise. One hit knocked the sword away. The second hit slashed at his wrist, cutting into the muscle cable and causing the hand to go limp. His sword fell to the floor.

The Decepticon didn't let up. Her blades slashed at him everywhere, keeping his arms busy just deflecting blows, making it impossible for Springer to reach for his blaster. He had chided her for being light, but now she was all around him, her light body making her fast and agile. She slashed at every exposed joint she could reach, trying to cut the larger Autobot's body right out from under him.

Springer fell to one knee as the other gave out. The second he used his good hand to catch himself, he realized his mistake. He just left his neck wide open for the execution. He could hear that blade sizzle as it raced towards him. But the final blow was deflected as another body charged the Decepticon. This was the one body on the whole base that was faster than the Decepticon femme.

Blur had wandered up the hall, wondering why the lights were out. He saw the attack and bodily charged, sending the Decepticon sprawling down the hall in less than a blink.  
"Springer! There'sanintruderinthebase! ! ! HowdidthatDecepticongetin?"

Springer struggled to find his balance, clutching his knee. "Never mind that, Blur, just get her before she does any more damage!"

Blur was instantly in front of the Decepticon as she jumped to her feet. The second he was close enough, he realized exactly what he had in front of him.

"Springer! That'safemaleDecepticon!" he cried as she slashed at him. She was fast, but Blur was still faster, easily dodging each strike. "Therearen'! Wheredidshecomefrom?"

Springer tried to get himself standing again, holding his wounded knee. "Who cares, just put her out of commission! Quickly!"

Blur dodged left and right as the Decepticon kept trying to slash at him. But no matter what she tried she just was not fast enough to connect.

"ButIcan'thitafemme! ,Springer! Ijustcan'tdoit!"

Blur had been so preoccupied with not getting sliced and not hitting the Decepticon femme, he failed to notice she had been backing him toward a thick pillar sticking out of the wall. She sliced one way and Blur turned to dodge and ran face first into the pillar at full speed. He promptly knocked himself out. The Autobot fell to the ground, out cold while his system tried to reset from the hit.

Lucky for him, the Decepticon wasn't interested in finishing him off. She had other orders. With one last look at the injured Springer, she took off down the hall. Springer limped after her, retrieving his sword with his uninjured hand and radioing an alarm through the base that they had an intruder.

The Decepticon was far ahead of him in seconds, fast and soundless on her feet. She didn't bother turning off lights as she went any longer; there was no point. They knew she was there. She needed to find her target quickly and get out of there. As luck would have it, said target wasn't too far away.

The narrow hallway fanned out into a large sitting room with glass windows decorating the entire wall, giving a vast view of the city below the tower. In the middle of the room stood a massive Autobot, tall and heavily armored. He carried a large blaster over his shoulder, fully ready, thanks to Springer's warning.

"Looking for me, by any chance?" Ultra Magnus asked the approaching Decepticon. He aimed his blaster, but she continued to race right toward the barrel of the weapon. Ultra Magnus had no choice but to fire.

He pulled the trigger. The Decepticon dodged, almost faster than the optic could follow, leaving a nasty burn in the floor behind her. Ultra Magnus fired once more. Again he missed as she continued to charge. The Decepticon was too close now. She jumped. There was a flash of light and the barrel of Magnus' gun fell to the floor. He quickly threw the energy weapon away from himself before it exploded. It hit the back wall and tore a nice hole into it, shattering the nearest window.

Before he knew it, the smaller Decepticon had landed on his shoulders. Ultra Magnus swatted his arms around, trying to get ahold of her.

She was so fast and agile, she kept avoiding his hands and climbed all over him. She sliced at his back and Mangus growled, grabbing her by the torso. He took a spare moment to look at the Decepticon femme before flinging her across the room. Magnus saw her land feet first against the wall and, at the same time, he he noticed something was tied to his wrist.

The Decepticon hit the wall with her feet and rebounded back toward him, shooting between his legs to come up behind him. She held the wire she had tied to his wrist and yanked as hard as she could. Ultra Magnus' hand was pulled between his knees before the rest of him and he tumbled, head over heels, landing flat on his back.

A seasoned fighter, Magnus didn't even take a moment to be stunned. He grabbed the wire attached to his wrist with intention of throwing the Decepticon off her feet herself. But she acted more quickly. That vicious blade came down and it sliced him clear through.

"Ultra Magnus!" Springer cried when he saw his leader lifeless on the floor.

The Decepticon looked up from where stood over him. Several Autobots spilled into the room, all armed. They opened fire. The Decepticon promptly turned and ran for the broken window. Fearlessly, she leaped out headfirst, transforming into a thin aircraft with two powerful thrusters. The force of those thrusters shattered the remaining windows as they roared to life and the Decepticon was out of Autobot airspace in seconds, just a dot in the sky.

Several Autobots rushed to the fallen Ultra Magnus while Springer limped to the window, looking out at the sky with a puzzled expression.

"What the frak was that?"

* * *

In Darkmount, the Decepticon stronghold, Megatron sat in the command chair he hadn't used in four million years. At his feet was thrown the dismembered hand and partial arm of Ultra Magnus, fluids still leaking from severed tubes. A smile crept up the side of his mouth when he saw his new trophy.

"Not too bad. An acceptable result, Shockwave."

Shockwave stood next to his new creation. It was a bit shorter than him and far lighter. Or, perhaps, _she_ would be the more appropriate term. She certainly had more female parts in her now than when Shockwave first saw her. All courtesy of the Autobot femmes Shockwave had scrapped over the eons and kept for parts. The faux spark signature he had installed in her completed the package. It wasn't real, of course, but the fake female signature was a fantastic distraction when turned to full power on an unsuspecting male.

"I am pleased that you are satisfied, Lord Megatron. I do agree, Blitzangel did very well on her trial mission. But then again, I knew she would."

Megatron rose from this throne to closer inspect the workmanship. "That is an interesting designation. There is no Cybertronian equivalent for that word."

"It is a mythological Earth creature," Shockwave reported. "Immortal, yet not alive. And the subject of fear and awe. I found it fitting."

"Indeed," Megatron agreed as he lifted Blitzangel's chin to inspect her. She did not flinch a muscle when he touched her. That was how he liked her, just like his Nightbird. Silent, deadly, and loyal.

Her red optic band was an interesting touch. An Autobot's laser rifle had completely destroyed one of her optic sockets. Instead of building a new one, Shockwave had opted to simply remove the other as well and replace it with a full optic band. It wasn't as aesthetically pleasing (though that depended on who you asked) but it was acceptable. Megatron was never one for outer appearances himself. It was all about the power one held, not what one looked like.

Still, his optics traveled over the femme's face, landing on her full lips. Interesting. Shockwave didn't have to alter the rest of her face plates. He could have kept the previous model's ambiguous shape if he so wished. But then again, Shockwave was a perfectionist. The dramatic difference between the old design on the new told just how much he fiddled with every little thing until he was satisfied. If Shockwave wanted the outer appearance to have a sleek, feminine look, that was completely his prerogative. As long as his new soldier continued to do what he said, Megatron was happy, no matter what it looked like.

"There are still many tests to run before I give it my seal of satisfaction," Starscream said from the left side of Megatron's chair. He had his arms folded judgmentally over his chest.

He stepped off the dais and over to the motionless femme, standing toe to toe with her. "And you followed my instructions?" He asked to her face, but he meant the question for Shockwave.  
"Yes, Starscream. As you requested, she is completely obedient to you, unless you tell her to do something that conflicts with any orders given by only Megatron himself."

Starscream grinned. "Excellent. Let's try it out. Blitzangel, is it? Salute me."

She raised her hand smartly.

"Stand on one foot."

The femme did that as well.

"Hop."

She hopped on one foot, one hand still saluting. Starscream turned to his wing mates, grinning. "Oh, this is going to be fun."

Skywarp was laughing. Thundercracker was not.

"Stop, Blitzangel," Starscream ordered.

She stopped hopping.

"And put down that foot and that hand." He turned back to Shockwave. "She's a bit literal. It's inconvenient. I can't spend my time telling her every little thing she needs to do during a raid."

"I'm afraid it's part of the programming," Shockwave said. "You wanted complete obedience; this is how she has to be. However, during battle, several personality blocks turn off when she's on a mission or she is in danger, allowing her to choose how to fight and defend herself. If this trial run was any indication, I would say it was a successful choice."

"I agree," Megatron nodded. "She will do for now."

"I'll take it on a mission with my seekers tomorrow," Starscream said. "We'll see how well it can keep up."

"I will make sure she is running at maximum efficiency for you," Shockwave nodded.

From his place near the back of the room, Thundercracker did not look pleased with the whole general situation. He wasn't comfortable with how the femme stood there, emotionless, thoughtless. It was too much like the others: all the other seekers who used to talk and laugh with him, all the others that were now still and silent like that one. Only this time, this particular one was made this way on purpose. Thundercracker did not know how he felt about that.

"Now, if you'll excuse me," Shockwave said, "I must go run a diagnostic on Blitzangel to confirm she received no damage during the mission. I will return her to you when I am finished."

Megatron gave the motion of dismissal and Shockwave marched out of the room with Blitzangel on his heels. She followed dutifully like a dog, staying right behind him all the way down the hall. Shockwave nodded as he passed his two lieutenants, Ransack and Beatback, their dark blues and reds blending into the colors of the dark hall.

Shockwave didn't see, but the two eyed his smaller companion as they went by, both with intent in their faces. As Shockwave and his new creation marched past, Ransack and Beatback locked optics. This situation was not part of the plan. It would need to be reported.

Shockwave, unaware of the meaningful looks and plans contrary to his own, continued down the hall to his lab, BlitzAngel still at his heels. They walked inside and Shockwave shut the door, locking it behind him. He so hated being interrupted when he was in the middle of something.

"On the table," he ordered simply as he turned to retrieve his tools. By the time he turned back around, Blitzangel was already lying on the examination table, waiting, motionless.

If only everything on this base listened to him the way she did. The blind loyalty was nice, but Shockwave wished Megatron had not decreed she loose her vocal ability. It made it difficult for him to ascertain how the mission went when he could not simply ask her. Not to mention, there were many things about her he did not know.

According to Megatron, she was some maintenance bot they stole from the Autobots. Shockwave wasn't sure it was as easy as that when he started tinkering with her processor. Her memory files were a mess, and that wasn't even counting the parts that were damaged from the head wound.

A normal Cybertronian's memory files were usually only as tidy as the individual itself. But there was a certain standard of order for everyone when it came to things such as sentimental memories, programming for specialized talents or professions like medical officer or sharpshooter, and so forth. This one had no folder or itemized files. It was just one big information dump. It offended Shockwave's organizational sensibilities wholly. It took him a moment to recover before he set about isolating the different programming he would need to reset this body to Megatron's wishes.

During his tinkering, Shockwave managed to locate all the maintenance programming, and then a large amount of medical training as well. He found it a bit odd that she had both. Maybe they were training the maintenance bot on medical skills because something had happened to their current medical officer. He really could only guess.

The strangest thing Shockwave found in his search were several strings of hand to hand combat programming. The more he looked, the more he found. This was not simply a single download or one training session. This was years of acquired information. And all the fighting styles Shockwave reviewed were unknown to the Cybertronian culture. The modified joints were only further evidence to back up the information he found. What was this thing? Was it really something the Autobots built? Or was it something more?

He would forever wonder, for this creation, whatever it or she was, would never talk again if Megatron had anything to say about it. Not that it mattered now. The present was still more important than the past. What mattered now was that she was a Decepticon, loyal to their cause and, thanks to Shockwave's ingenious design, a force to be reckoned with. The curious fighting programs only helped to enhance her prowess. She did not fight like any Decepticon, so the Autobots had no idea what to expect when she attacked.

Not to mention the other advantages Shockwave gave her: energy blades, wrist wire, the powerful thrusters, and that delightfully agile form which gave her a speed no one could match. She was walking death, in more ways than one. This body had no spark, not even before she was dropped at his feet, damaged. And yet, Shockwave still had to alter its programming to take out its personality.

In their culture there was no personality without the spark. Personality was hopes, dreams, hates, fears, life. Without it, the body was just a robot, just a mindless machine. Yet, from what Shockwave had gathered, this particular machine had a life. It had learned and lived to some extent. Was that what the Autobots were trying to do? Create life without a spark? It was a frightening revelation. A Cybertronian without the spark would truly be immortal: alive, yet undead.

Shockwave shook himself from the disturbing thought. He still had work to do. He removed Blitzangel's chest armor to retrieve the recording chip he had installed. It was the only way he could get a report on how the mission went. While in there, he also switched on the fake spark signature he had installed. It was something he had developed for the female Autobots who often skulked around in his territory. Thinking they were following it to save one of their own, it had led more than a few to their dismemberment. But using it this way was sheer genius.

The faux spark signature buzzed to life and his own male spark fluttered at the proximity. It was definitely a distracting sensation. Especially for one who had not been with a female in eons. That was pretty much every male on the planet. Usually, if females were around, their signature would be subdued naturally. It was only left open at full exposure when attempting to get a certain male's attention. To feel something like that during a fight in a world sorely lacking in anything female would definitely cause a warrior to pause. That pause could cost him his life.  
Yes, he had created one interesting femme indeed. Not that her spark signature was the only thing attractive about her. Shockwave's single optic ran over her lines. Definitely not the only thing attractive about her at all.

He left the spark signature running. The body it belonged to never flinched from the table, held there by invisible shackles until she received the vocal command to leave. Shockwave's hand wandered over his creation, intent on appreciating the craftsmanship fully.

* * *

Iacon: Two Weeks Later

It was an excruciating wait for his turn to go through the space bridge. All the Autobots transferring to Earth had to go first. That was both combiner teams: the Protectobots and the Arielbots. The first group was no problem. The second, the little scrap heads had wandered off somewhere. It took over an hour for a very flustered Silverbolt to finally round up the other four and shove them through the bridge.

Now, finally, it was Mirage's turn to go home. Permanently. Optimus be damned if he ever tried to transfer him back to Earth again. Mirage was done with that planet. Done for good. The tall spires, the dark, starry skies, the glow of the city. His weary optics had missed this sight.

Several of his fellow Earth Autobots crossed over with him, including the slightly taller Sideswipe who exited right behind him. Mirage was too consumed with the beauty of his homeworld to notice the arms wrapping around him from behind until he was yanked right off his feet.

"Mirage! So excited to be home! Woo hoo!" Sideswipe cheered as he spun around with the blue and white Autobot.

"Ack! Stop it!" Mirage demanded. Ultra Magnus and his commanding officers were nearby. This was not the impression he wanted to make with his Earth team.  
"Say you're excited!" Sideswipe egged him on, not letting go.

"Fine! I'm excited! Now put me down!"

From his vantage point of the new faces, Kup frowned as he folded his arms over his chest.

Next to him, Springer gave a crooked smile. "What's the matter, Kup? Are they not what you expected?"

"Nah, I was just thinking my processor is too old to fit all these new names in there. I hope I don't have to learn them all."

Springer grinned broadly as he watched Sideswipe fling the lighter Mirage around. "You know, Ultra Magnus once said to me that someone should remember them."  
Kup took a moment to look thoughtful. "I see."

The other Earth Autobots exited the bridge, staring at the cityscape they hadn't seen for so long. Iacon was not the city they remembered. There had been many battles and rebuilding since last they had been there.

Sunstreaker didn't bother to look up. He didn't care what the city looked like. This wasn't how he imagined returning to his home planet, without anyone new to show it off to. All the places he thought he would go when he got back, none of them appealed to him now. He just wanted to go nose around his old place and see if it was still standing, then maybe go brood there for a couple of days before returning to duty.

"Sunstreaker, please don't go anywhere," Prowl said, not looking up from his roster. He was making sure everyone scheduled for Cybertron made it through before the bridge was closed. "Everyone needs to be fitted for new tires. Then you'll be free to go."

Sunstreaker huffed loudly as he plopped himself on a bench. As much as he hated listening to Prowl, he also wasn't in too big a hurry to blow a tire or slide off one of Cybertron's metal roads. It was a long way down for many of them.

Sideswipe slid next to him in high spirits. "Hey Sunny, after we get fitted, you wanna check out the place? See if any of our favorite joints are still standing? If we can find a bar, I'll buy you a drink. How about it?"

Sunstreaker leveled a dark look on his brother. Sideswipe was always the clown of the two, but he seemed to be working extra hard lately to try to lighten his brother's heavy mood.  
Optimus came out near the end and was immediately greeted by Ultra Magnus. The two shook hands as Jazz was the last to step through. He signaled to the engineer running the space bridge that they were finished and it was switched off. Prowl checked Jazz's name off the roster. Everyone was accounted for.

Springer bent over to whisper to Kup. "What's up with Jazz and that nice battle scar he's got? I know he didn't have that the last time I saw him. I also know they had a medic down there because he just came through the bridge with them."

Kup gave him an amused look. "You're not as old as you pretend to be, are you lad?"

Springer puffed out his chest, a bit offended with that remark. "Why do you say that?"

"It's an old Cybertronian custom. If a close friend dies during battle, sometimes an Autobot would keep their surface wounds as a sign of mourning."

"Ah." Springer nodded his head sagely. Then he paused and narrowed his optics in thought. "Who died?"

Kup shrugged. "Slag if I know. No one tells me a frakkin' thing."

* * *

After all the Earth transfers had been refitted with proper treads, they were sent on their way to reacquaint themselves with their old home. Most were excused to get their affairs in order for three solar cycles before having to report back to duty.

To Optimus Prime, Prowl and Jazz, however, that luxury was not afforded. As soon as all the others were situated and dismissed, the three of them rendezvoused with Ultra Magnus in one of the meeting rooms. Hot Rod was there as well, running the large computer at one side of the room. As useless as Kup claimed he was on a daily basis, Hot Rod was quite good at editing video footage and cleaning up fuzzy spy shots. Ultra Magnus required his assistance for this report.

"My underground intelligence has been suspicious for a while," Ultra Magnus began his presentation. "But a few days ago, we received visual confirmation that Megatron had returned to Cybertron."

Hot Rod flipped through a few pictures on screen, all showing Megatron in his usual battle hungry glory, explosions and chaos around him, followed by his troops.

"These pictures were taken when he and his Decepticons attempted to blow up the space warp gate in our sector. It was, apparantly, the same gate he used to get back to Cybertron."

Optimus watched the screen quietly. He really wasn't expecting to see Megatron any time soon with his space voyage taking him in the opposite direction of Cybertron.

"Whoa. We own a space warp gate?" Jazz interrupted.

"Not us," Magnus corrected. "The Galactic Alliance."

Jazz nodded like he knew what he talking about, then looked at Prowl for answers.

"I sent you the literature," Prowl said. "Didn't you read it?"

"I've been busy," Jazz shot back.

Prowl frowned. "The Galactic Alliance was formed some 700 years ago by several different planet governments in a movement to spread peace and trading across the galaxy. The space warp bridges are their project, giving trade and immigrant ships easy access to several galaxies within week's worth of travel when it used to take whole life times. Any planet, species, or political or social group who is a member of the alliance are free to use the warp gates at any time.

"The idea behind this is to spread peace and trade to every planet and people. Unfortunately, it also opens up the door to easily spread war on a wider range."

"In theory, it does," Ultra Magnus. "But so far, every Alliance member has found it far more profitable to to use the gates to make money, not spread war. Both the Autobots and the Decepticons are members of the Alliance. We are allowed to continue to war with each other, but we cannot take our battles to Alliance property, like the warp gate.

"Megatron's attack on it has broken their treaty with the Alliance and forfeited their membership. As fellow Cybertronians, it's put the Autobot's membership into question as well. We are currently banned from all gate travel pending further investigation of the matter."

Jazz raised his hand. "So why exactly did 'ol Megs attack this gate? I must have missed that part."

Ultra Magnus gave a small shrug as he looked at the computer screen. "That still has us all baffled. We have no idea what he has to gain from it. There's no doubt in my processor Shockwave isn't happy. With Swindle head of the Decepticon trading, they had their transistors in every type of business to be had out there. We've been trying to see what the Decepticons could possibly gain from cutting so many ties. We've been assuming Megatron is either trying to cripple the Autobot supply, or he's just plain lost it and attacked the gate for the fun of it."

"Megatron is many things," Optimus Prime said quietly. "But he is not insane. He lives for destruction, but everything he destroys has a purpose. We just don't see it yet."

"That's what worries me," Ultra Magnus nodded. "We need to get on top of what his plans are and we need to do it soon."

Prowl was busy typing up notes in his data pad. "Do you have confirmation on the other Decepticons that arrived with him? How many and who they are?" he asked without looking up.  
Ultra Magnus nodded to Hot Rod who brought a few more pictures up on the screen. All were of Decepticons, taken during battle.

"Since Megatron's return, we've had two small outposts attacked near Decepticon territory. Both were completely destroyed," Magnus' voice lowered in regret. "There were very few survivors." He straightened himself and returned to his business voice. "With the information we gathered, we confirmed the presence of these Decepticons: Soundwave, Starscream, Thundercracker, Skywarp, Astrotrain, and Blitzwing."

The other three Autobots nodded. That was exactly who they expected to be with Megatron.

"Anyone else?" Prowl asked casually.

Jazz's head shot over to the side to stare at him, surprised he would ask. Was Prowl still hopeful they had a certain someone else with them? Prowl still wasn't looking up to meet his gaze.

"Actually," Ultra Magnus said. "There was one more Decepticon. We were hoping you would be able to shed some light on this particular individual."

A new slide popped up on the screen and the three Autobots from Earth leaned it to get a better look at it. Even Prowl looked up, squinting at the picture.

"I'm sorry it's not a good resolution, but it's the best picture we have. This femme is dark and fast. She's very difficult to get a photo of."

Prowl stood up in his chair, taking a few steps forward to look at the picture more closely. The form, though blurry, was still very unfamiliar.

"I'm sorry, femme?" Jazz said. "As in female Decepticon? Are you sure?"

Ultra Magnus nodded gravely. "Quite sure. She managed to sneak into the Iacon main tower, don't ask me how. We're still trying to figure that one out. Springer ran into her on one of our upper floors. During the altercation he managed to get a scan of her spark signature. Definitely female."

Prowl was now very close to the large screen, looking at every pixel of it. He snapped his head over at Ultra Magnus when he said that last bit of information.

"She had a signature? A Cybertronian spark signature?"

"Yes. That was how we confirmed her gender. We ran the signature code through our database, but we couldn't find a match. We don't know her designation and very little about her abilities."

"Ultra Magnus," Optimus Prime said. "As I remember it, the female Decepticons were chased out of the Decepticon forces, most of them killed."

"This is true. For a long time we thought they were completely extinct. After the space warp gates were built, we began receiving reports of a few female Decepticons living on other planets. They're still out there, but there are very few left. I haven't heard of a single one willing to come back to Cybertron while Megatron was still alive. We theorize Megatron found this femme out in space somewhere. I don't know if she follows him willingly or if she's his captive."

By now, Prowl had found his seat again and was typing away. "What are her known abilities?"

"Energized blades on her arms. She seems to prefer close combat. I've had no report of her using firearms as of yet. Stealthy, silent. Aircraft alt mode with powerful thrusters. And she's fast. I've never seen a Cybertronian move like that."

Hot Rod, who had been quiet and obedient the entire time, suddenly brightened. "Hey, you guys want to see her fight Ultra Magnus? We caught it on tape, it's rich!"  
Magnus winced at the thought. "Please Hot Rod, we don't need to see-"

But the clip caught by the security cameras was already running. Ultra Magnus was fighting off a thin blur of dark purple and black. He shot the femme across the room and she ricocheted right back, flying between his legs.

"Watch Mags flip right on his back," Hot Rod narrated with glee. "Bam!"

Ultra Magnus turned from the mortifying clip. He wasn't going to live that down for a while. He rubbed at his newly repaired arm, remembering the fight. Losing part of a limb to anyone wasn't fun.

"Wow," Jazz said. "She is fast. Scary."

Prowl was prepared to ask more questions when there was a commotion outside the door. Blaster's voice rang clear and angry that he wanted inside the room now. A stern voice came from one of Ultra Magnus' guards, insisting that there was a meeting going on and he was not permitted entrance.

There were sounds of a scuffle and then the door opened anyway. The guard scrambled to his feet while Blaster stalked inside the meeting room. Prowl was the nearest to the door. He had made it to his feet before Blaster sucker punched him right in the face, sending Prowl stumbling into the table.

Jazz had already retaliated with a punch of his own before Prowl could get his footing again. Messing with one SIC always meant you messed with both of them, no matter who you were. Blaster took a step back from the punch and then swung wildly. Jazz dodged each blow, then kicked him in the gut. He shoved the taller Autobot into the wall.

Optimus Prime was barely to his feet by the time Jazz had Blaster pinned to the ground. "Blaster, explain yourself right now."

Blaster growled deep in his throat, his body tight. Jazz didn't dare let him up yet.

"How long has it been, huh? Two months? Three?" Blaster demanded. "When were you going to tell me about it?"

Ultra Magnus had no idea what he was talking about. For a while, the others didn't either.

"She was helpless and small!" Blaster spat at them. "And you gave her up to the Decepticons! How hard is it to look after one person?"

Ultra Magnus looked on with wide optics before Optimus met his gaze. "I'm afraid this is a personal matter. Would you excuse us for a moment?"

It was clearly not a request and Hot Rod quickly made himself scarce from the room. Ultra Magnus walked out a bit more slowly, letting Optimus see on his face that he clearly expected an explanation later.

* * *

Two hours and a great deal of verbal exchange later, Blaster was out sulking on one of the higher landing pads overlooking the city. He stood with arms folded, frowning at the lights below. Behind him, his sensitive audios picked up very light, very quiet footfalls.

"What do you want, Mirage?"

The footsteps stopped. "Usually I can walk right up to someone without them even noticing."

"Yeah, well not everyone has audios like these."

Mirage walked forward until they were standing shoulder to shoulder looking at the city.

"I heard what happened. I'm sorry you had to find out that way, Blaster. I assumed someone sent you some kind of message before now."

"Yeah, looks like that's what everyone assumed," Blaster grouched.

"Still, you're lucky they didn't give you time in a cell for attacking Prowl and Jazz."

Silence from Blaster.

"That was pretty harsh treatment. You know those two took what happened to Crystal really hard. I mean _really_ hard. Hearing it from you did not help."

"I don't care," Blaster insisted as he slouched. "I'll be mad at who I want."

Mirage held up his hands in surrender. "Fine. It's your right. You do what you need to do."

They fell silent for several minutes. Then Blaster started getting antsy. He shifted and bounced his knee. Then he made a growl of frustration as he rubbed the bridge of his nose.  
"It wouldn't have made a difference if you were there or not," Mirage said, reading his thoughts. "There were several of us there and we couldn't stop it."

Blaster continued to fidget. "Still, I wish I had been there."

Mirage frowned. "No, you don't. It was weeks and weeks of excruciating helplessness and doubt. You don't want to live through that. I mean, I didn't even know her that well. Not like some of the others. And I would never ever want to go through that again."

It went quiet once more.

"Hey Blaster, do you want to get out of town for a while?"

"What?"

"Let's go somewhere and just get out for a while. Come on, I'll give you a ride. What do you say?"

Blaster was silent for a while more, watching the vehicles down below drive in and out of the gates. Then he turned to Mirage.

"Yeah, let's get out of here."

* * *

On an outpost at the edge of their territory, the Autobot scouts manning the tower saw nothing but carnage, flames and death before their sparks were extinguished. The two towers that had toppled earlier were no different. Even when the Autobots increased their numbers at the outposts, they were ill-prepared for Starscream and his team when they swept in, weapons blazing.

The Autobots had become soft on Cybertron. They were no longer used to engaging ruthless enemies. Shockwave was more concerned with his galactic trading and building up his supplies, wealth, and political status than with battle. His troops no longer tore through Cybertron, causing fear and panic wherever they went like in the good old days.

The Decepticons on Cybertron were too soft for Starscream's liking, as well. He had to admit that twenty some-odd years he had spent on Earth were not full of marauding and destruction either, but the second he and his team stepped foot on their home planet, it was like they never left. With his fellow seekers and Soundwave beside him, Starscream ripped up the Autobot outpost from the outside in. They didn't stand a chance. The Decepticons were too strong, too fast to resist.

His new puppet had also done her job well, Starscream had to admit. On every outpost they'd hit, Blitzangel had moved in swiftly and silently. Unlike her first trial mission at Iacon, her mission was specifically to kill every Autobot she found in the building and not to stop until there was not a single one left standing. She did her duty well. It was very interesting to see.

As Starscream walked down the now quiet hallways, he could tell from the state of the bodies whose handiwork was whose. Killed by anyone else, the bodies were mangled, torn, or full of smoking laser holes. But the majority of the bodies were whole, almost untouched, but still dead. They had been sliced cleanly, all with major energy arteries severed as precisely as a surgeon. Energon seeped out in heavy puddles everywhere. Starscream had to hover a few times to avoid stepping in it.  
Near the end of the hall stood the culprit, still as a doll, now that there were no more Autobots to kill.

"Excellent work," Starscream told Blitzangel. "You are an efficient killer, aren't you? Do you enjoy taking the lives of that many Autobots? You must, because you do it so well."  
She didn't move, not a single muscle cable or even a twitch of the mouth.

"Do you enjoy anything at all?" Starscream asked drolly.

Again, there was no movement.

Starscream frowned. "At least nod when I'm speaking."

Blitzangel nodded.

"That's a little better. Now if we could just get you to- oh for Primus' sakes, you can stop nodding now!"

She stopped.

Starscream gave a noise of frustration. "Come, follow me."

He continued on, avoiding puddles of life liquid that seeped from the dead. Blitzangel followed, walking right through it and leaving sticky footprints wherever she walked. They arrived in the command surveillance room of the outpost, which afforded them a glorious view of everything around them.

Soundwave was already there. Thundercracker and Skywarp arrived a few moments later, confirming that they had not found a single living Autobot remaining.

"Base secure, Starscream," Skywarp bragged as he helped himself to the nearest chair and propped up his feet. "I think our time was faster than the last one. We are so good at this. Look at how many Autobots we've gotten rid of already and we've only been here two weeks!"

"Yes, Megatron is going to have his work cut out for him, trying to shape up these spoiled soldiers of Shockwave's," Starscream agreed. "He's let them get soft."  
Skywarp started laughing. "Why is she nodding?" He pointed at Blitzangel.

"Ugh! Stop that!" Starscream ordered. He grabbed her hand and steered her around in front of him. "This isn't going to work. We need to fix your programming. Soundwave, what's the situation outside?"

"Signatures of Autobots reinforcements detected," Soundwave responded, gazing out a window. "Currently stationed within visual range. No advancement."

"They won't get any closer," Starscream said with confidence as he pulled out his vid pad and fiddled with it. "We've already claimed this outpost. Those Autobots would only risk their lives if we had hostages." Starscream, of course, never left hostages. It was just too much responsibility and he didn't want to bother with it. "Once they see there's no one to save here, they'll leave."

"We should keep this place for ourselves," Skywarp suggested. "I like it. It's cozy."

Thundercracker, who had been quiet the entire time, took more interest in what Starscream was up to as he removed Blitzangel's chest armor. "Is she damaged?"

"Only because Shockwave doesn't know how to program properly," Starscream grouched as he fingered through her tubes and cables. "Ah, there it is."

After finding the correct port, Starscream plugged his data pad into her systems, muttering to himself about how useless Shockwave was as he looked through her code on his screen. He considered himself at least a one-third joint owner of Blitzangel and Starscream was always very particular about his property. Everything he owned had to run at top condition and to his liking. If not, he either got rid of it, or altered it until he was satisfied.

"What are you doing, exactly?" Thundercracker bent over, trying to look at the screen. "She fights just fine."

"Sure, she fights fine, but look at this." Starscream reached up and grabbed her chin, flicking her head back and forth. "There's nothing there. It's like talking to a wall. If we're not in battle, I have to tell her every little thing. I need a soldier who can think for herself. Not some... doll that I have to babysit.

"Shockwave may do fine working with brainless drones, but I require some intelligence in my team. Working with the two of you is bad enough."

"Hey now," Skywarp said from across the room. "Let's be nice now. I've seen you screw up plenty of times, too, Screamer."

Starscream looked up. "Yes, and who was the one who prevented your warp drive from eating you right out of existence?"

Skywarp shrugged and let it go.

Right then, Starscream's communicator went off, signaling that it was none other than Shockwave calling him.

"Hold this," he told Blitzangel and she obediently held his data pad. Then he stood as he answered his communicator. "What do you want, Shockwave?"

"Starscream, where are you? You should have conquered that base already."

"What's it to you?" Starscream challenged.

"If you are finished, you need to return Blitzangel to me. I need to check her systems."

Starscream frowned. There were few things he loathed more than giving Shockwave what he wanted. "I'm afraid I can't return right now because... because we're still under attack. Here come more Autobots!"

He looked pointedly at Skywarp and Thundercracker. The two seekers started shooting the walls and kicking the equipment to make noise.

"Starscream?" Shockwave's voice called. "What Autobots? Do you need reinforcements?"

"Sorry, can't talk right now. I need this frequency open. It will be fine. I'll radio when it's over." Starscream then promptly killed the line and blocked it before sitting down and going back to work.

Shockwave's actions and his anxiousness when Blitzangel was away from him made Starscream suspicious. Shockwave had built and programmed countless soldiers for both Megatron and Starscream's use and he never gave them a second glance once they were off the assembly line. But Shockwave kept this one under lock and key when she wasn't on a mission.

Starscream had to practically fight him just to get some time with the femme so she could practice with his team. It was ridiculous and unacceptable. She was built to fly with Starscream's seekers, thus they needed to get used to working with four members instead of three. It was a perfectly logical use of her time. He could see in the faces of Thundercracker and Skywarp as well that they thought it odd when Shockwave would worry they'd had her for too long, saying she needed to go inside to be checked on. Very strange indeed. Starscream would have to look into that.

"You almost done yet?" Skywarp prodded. "I'm bored."

"Almost. Just removing a few more inhibitors..."

Blitzangel's head moved. She rotated it over to stare at Thundercracker. It unnerved him a bit and he took a step back. Then Blitzangel looked down at her exposed wires and the plug sticking out of her chest. She reached up to touch it.

Starscream slapped her hand away. "Don't touch it. I'm almost done."

She obediently put her hand down and stayed there until Starscream unplugged his pad and closed her up.

"Now lift your chin." Starscream removed a tiny panel and slid a recording device into her neck. Maybe now he would find out what Shockwave has been so anxious about. He smiled at Blitzangel, satisfied with the results. "That's my girl."

"Hey Starscream," Rumble called as he and Frenzy walked into the room. "We're finished ripping up the basement like ya told us to."

"Excellent." Starscream walked purposefully out the door. A moment later he poked his head back in. "Ahem!"

Skywarp looked up from his chair. "Oh, are we supposed to come, too?"

"Yes! Get going! Ugh!" Starscream stormed off, mumbling that they all needed upgrades.

Rumble and Frenzy trotted after him, followed by Soundwave. Thundercracker and Blitzangel reached the door at the same time. He paused, letting her go through first.

"Aww... that's sweet," Skywarp jeered.

His response was a sharp elbow in the chest.

They all marched single file after Starscream, down the thin hallway to the basement of the outpost. They passed several lifeless bodies on their way. Thundercracker jumped in surprise when one moaned. He was about to lean closer to inspect it when a yellow blade cut through the air, just inches from his face. Once slice and the body was silent once again. Blitzangel continued down the hall as if nothing had happened; Thundercracker stared after her.

In the basement of the outpost, several feet below the foundation, the twin cassettes had discovered a personal transport tube, leading down into the deeper levels of Cybertron. They were the popular mode of transportation for those wanting to travel from one level to the next. Back in the golden age, massive transport tubes ran like subway systems day and night for the growing population. These days, they were all but forgotten. Most of Cybertron's inhabitants now lived on the surface and would rarely go one or two levels lower.

This particular tube was not meant for public transit. It was a personal transport path and was hidden on purpose. Starscream was already sizing up the entrance to see if his wingspan would fit.

"We're going... underground?" Thundercracker asked, distaste in his voice. No seeker liked to be in confined spaces under layers and layers of roads, tunnels and buildings if he could help it.

"It's perfectly safe. Coward," Starscream glowered at him. "Blitzangel, in."

The femme jumped into the tube without any hesitation. Starscream gave Thundercracker a look that said "See?" before slipping in after her. Skywarp, not to be shown up by Starscream, of all Decepticons, shouldered past Thundercracker and jumped into the tube. Thundercracker dutifully joined him, a frown on his face, followed by Soundwave and his twin cassettes.

The tube led deep down into the planet. Not just to a few layers beneath the surface, but a one-way express to a level far deeper than any self-respecting Decepticon would go without good reason. The only other time any of them had gone this deep was when they were searching for Vector Sigma at the very core of the planet. They weren't quite that deep so far, but it was enough to get a seeker's wings twitching with claustrophobia when he thought about how many layers were piled up on top of them.

At the end of the transportation tunnel, Starscream waited for them, his data pad in hand. It had taken three Autobot outposts for him to finally find the right one. Shockwave, the fool, had no idea that this was the reason he had been attacking those particular stations. Neither did Megatron. If only they knew how much Starscream knew. If only they realized how long he had been around.

For down below the surface, it was a large mess of a metropolis with tubes, walkways and tunnels going in every direction. This was done on purpose, for the same reason the entrance was built into the foundation of an Autobot base. What Starscream was looking for was hidden very well. Luckily, he had a map.

"This way." He pointed to one tunnel in particular and the rest followed him.

The tunnel angled down even deeper before leveling out. It led into a wide room with a low ceiling and pillars here and there. There were several other tunnel entrances lining every wall. Starscream already knew which one he wanted to go in.

"You three stay here and keep watch," Starscream ordered his air team. "Soundwave, come with me."

He left his two seekers and the femme behind while Soundwave followed him down the next entrance to a vaulted door with an access pad. Starscream motioned to the security system.

"If you would, please?"

Soundwave plugged himself into the system. It took him a while to get through the security protocol, but Starscream helped him firewall anything the security system could throw at him. Soundwave's optic band flickered as he worked. Time ticked on. The port he had plugged into grew red hot from the fight, but eventually, Soundwave won out, as he usually did.

"Excellent," Starscream said as the vault door unlocked and he walked in.

Contained inside was an old laboratory which had not been used in a very long time. Starscream had become aware of its existence when the Decepticons first confronted the lab's owner: Alpha Trion. That old bot was sure a busy one. He had various labs and stations in several areas. Most were to be of use to the few female Autobots still roaming the lower levels. They were either abandoned or moved when Alpha Trion gave himself up to Vector Sigma.

This particular station, Starscream found by looting what remained of the old bot's previous lab. He hid the location well, but not well enough.

Immediately, Starscream began searching through the old files and data tracks. There were mountains of interesting information to be found and researched another time. Today he was looking for something specific.

* * *

Outside, the two seekers wandered around in boredom. There was nothing to do out here. Not a soul lived this deep in Cybertron. There was really no reason to keep guard. Skywarp meandered farther out than Thundercracker, poking his head into different tunnels and wandering around the pillars. Blitzangel stayed in a protective stance, situating herself in a position where she could watch all the other entrances.

Thundercracker leaned against a pillar next to her, watching her as her head swept left to right and back again. She was still blindly obedient, but he could tell Starscream had changed her a bit. At least now he felt like he was standing next to something that might be alive as opposed to just a piece of hardware in a feminine shape. Her old form felt more alive: the little maintenance bot with the expressive face. Even if she didn't have a spark. Thundercracker idly wondered if anything went through her processor now, or if it was just blank, waiting for its next command.

Everything remained quiet in the room, but Thundercracker's sensors eventually began to pick up something heavy in the atmosphere. It made him tense up, just a little. It felt like something was going to happen.

Skywarp began to reflect the growing restlessness. His aimless wandering turned into a protective stroll, back never to the doors, optics always watching. He drifted back closer to his team, his posture indicating he was on edge. "Am I just getting paranoid, 'Cracker? Or do you feel something, too?"

By now, there was a tangible static in the air that made Skywarp's wing tips twitch and gave a particular crawling sensation to his inner circuits. The Cybertronian equivalent of goose bumps.

"We are pretty far into Cybertron," Thundercracker insisted, trying to shrug off the sensation. "There are all sorts of weird frequencies humming around down here. It's just messing with our sensors."

Before Skywarp could reply, Blitzangel crouched in a defensive stance. Her blades shot out without warning, making the two seekers jump. Her head swung from side to side as if trying to find the source of a sound only she could hear. Thundercracker was about to ask what she was doing when even he picked up motion in one of the tunnels out of the side of his optic.

Blitzangel took off like a flash after the movement. The two seekers looked at each other and followed, forgetting all about their guard duty for Starscream. They ran into the black tunnel, which dropped in angle dramatically. The two seekers slipped on the slick surface and fell the rest of the way. Skywarp warped to the bottom while Thundercracker slid to a not-as-respectable stop on his backside. Blitzangel was already there, looking around as if expecting a fight at any moment. Her arm blades lit up the dark, dirty room in a dull yellow.  
Thundercracker got to his feet and adjusted his optics to view the massive area. Even though there was no light below, there was something dark and black about this room.

Skywarp, as foolhardy as ever, walked bravely forward to get a better look. Everything was dirty and felt of rot and decay, and was covered with a layer of melted metal, now brown and rusted. In the middle was a large sort of hole or pool that had thickly crusted over. Skywarp stepped back in horror when he realized the random debris close to the hole was not debris at all, but charred and melted body parts.

"Primus," he spat with distaste. "It's a smelting pit!"

Thundercracker's fuel tanks flip-flopped as he came to the same realization. There were old controls, restraining devices and conveyor belts leading into the pit. No Cybertronian was tough enough to live through the heat of a smelting pit. They were metal, after all. All metal melted eventually. It was an assembly line of death. Many, many years ago, generations before him, someone used this to extinguish massive numbers of sparks in a very gruesome manner. Who they were and why they did it, Thundercracker had no idea. But as Skywarp continued to stare with morbid curiosity, Thundercracker thought he was going to be ill.

He was about to suggest they go back when he felt that tingling, uneasy sensation again. Blitzangel jumped into action, swinging her head from side to side, rotating her body this way and that, her blades crackling with new energy. Skywarp moved closer while Thundercracker watched in confusion.

"I think she hears something," Skywarp said.

"Hears what, exactly?" Thundercracker shot back. "Thanks to Megatron, it's not like we can just ask her." He really couldn't put his finger on it, but Thundercracker couldn't get over the fact that he was annoyed he was unable to talk to her.

Skywarp grabbed a metal rod on the ground and torched the tip with his laser until it was sharp and black.

"Here." He handed it to Blitzangel and pointed to the wall. "Write it down. Tell us what you hear."

Another of Blitzangel's upgrades was to make her fluent in Cybertronian. Before, she could only speak that horrible Earth English language. Upon arriving on Cybertron, Cybertronian was all the Decepticons spoke, so the upgrade made it possible for her to understand orders. It also made it possible for her to understand what she was hearing and she hastily scrawled it out in Cybertronian script on the wall.

The seekers' jaws fell farther the more they read.

_Primus, please no! Someone save us! Why are you doing this to us? I don't want to die!_

Cold temperatures did not usually bother a Cybertronian, but as Thundercracker read those words, he felt an uncomfortable iciness grab hold of his spark.

* * *

Starscream was deep into his file searching, oblivious to everything around him. So many interesting things Alpha Trion had stored here! Centuries and centuries of information and he was downloading as much as possible to go over later at his leisure. But more importantly, the one file he come for had been located. It was so nice when his plans worked out.

"Starscream." Skywarp was right behind him when he said it, causing Starscream to back up into him with a startled squawk.

"What is it?" Starscream demanded, irritated both at being startled and the interruption.

"We're going back to base."

"You're... what?" Starscream asked, looking from Skywarp's uncharacteristically serious face to Thundercracker, who was standing almost protectively in front of his new puppet. His body language said he was taking Blitzangel with him when they left.

"We're done," Skywarp clarified. "We're getting the frag out of here."

There was something in his tone that took away Starscream's will to argue and piqued his interest at the same time.

"Very well. I have plenty of data to go over. We'll leave for now."

* * *

In the gloom of the alien cityscape of Helix the very unusual form of an Earth-designed formula one racer roared over the broken, unused streets. Helix, which once had the reputation of being a party city, was now just a crumbled up area of decay. It was technically in Autobot territory, but neither side really wanted it now. It had nothing left to offer.

Mirage navigated the streets as best he could. The closer he got to the heart of the city, the worse the roads were. Some were completely blocked off with parts of buildings crushing them. But he numbly made his way through the rust and decay as best he could.

"When you offered to go for a drive, I didn't think you would take me here," said Blaster's radio form from the passenger seat.

"Well, I figured even though you came back to Cybertron, you wouldn't take time to visit," Mirage responded back conversationally.

"I told you, man, this place isn't my home any more." Blaster's voice took on an irritated tone, but Mirage chose to ignore it.

"While you're here, is there any specific place you'd like to see?"

Blaster said nothing and opted to brood in his seat. Maybe if he didn't say anything, Mirage would resort to returning their aimless trip back to Iacon. But he continued to pick through the city, visiting all the different hot spots.

"My friends and I would try to come down here once every quartex or so. Helix was always a great place to unwind and have a good time. Beautiful femmes here, too. And the energon was always high quality."

Blaster stayed quiet for a while longer and Mirage began to think the usually talkative Autobot wasn't going to say a word the entire trip.

"Stop." Blaster spoke suddenly and Mirage hit the brakes. He quickly opened his door as Blaster transformed to his much larger root mode.

Without explanation, Blaster started to walk toward one building in particular and Mirage transformed to run after him. The spy stayed quiet as Blaster picked through the rubble to get inside and climb the broken stairs several stories to the top. They emerged onto a large platform. It looked like a massive landing pad, but Mirage remembered what it was used for. He had been to this particular club a few times before during Cybertron's golden age. It was a large dance floor. For a moment, he recalled the parties, the drinks, the dancing and lights at the open air club. It had been an amazing place to visit both day and night.

Blaster walked onto the floor and Mirage then noticed a large chunk of it was missing. Only half of the dance floor was left standing. The rest of the floor and balcony were completely missing, leaving only empty air hovering over the shorter buildings. Blaster stood at the edge for awhile, the tips of his feet peeking over, his gaze thoughtfully on the horizon. Mirage stood next to him, waiting.

"She said she would meet me here," Blaster finally said to the open air. "The day the Decepticons attacked Helix." He nodded farther out where the balcony used to be. "That was her favorite spot to sit and wait." He chuckled bitterly. "She was always waiting for me. I always thought I had more important things to do: better parties, greater gigs, than to meet her on time. She sent me a message, telling me to meet her here. She said she had something to tell me and it was important." He frowned. "I never treated her like she was important. I never came."

"If you had, that would have been you out there," Mirage nodded to where the balcony and dance floor were now shattered several stories below.

"Or maybe I could have saved her."

"Maybe." Mirage sat down, dangling his legs over the edge.

"Crys reminded me of her. Awkward, silly, but she always tried harder in everything she did more than I did in anything."

Blaster sat down and Mirage leaned back, looking at the sky. It was gray and dark blue, so much more dreary than how it used to be. He remembered a time when the sky glowed in hues of pink and purple, orange and yellow, as the thick atmosphere reflected the lights of the cities. These days, there weren't many city lights to reflect.

"So, what was her name?"

"Beatback."

"Pretty masculine name for a femme."

Blaster chuckled. "Yeah, I don't know what her creator was thinking. She didn't seem to mind, though."

"Doesn't Shockwave have a lieutenant named Beatback?"

"Yeah." Blaster frowned. "Some big, hulking triple changer mech. Never tangled with him myself, but I've heard he's pretty mean. They're not the same."

The two sat quietly for a moment, their legs dangling out in the open air.

"You know," Mirage said after a while, "I thought a lot about what you told me those few months ago. About how Cybertron can't be home if your loved ones aren't there any longer?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"I can understand where you're coming from now, but I still can't see it the way you do. Cybertron will forever be my home, not because of what is here now, but because of what used to be. Yes, bad things happened in the places we lived, but before that, so many good things took place here. If I give up trying to bring the good things back, I feel like I'll be forgetting everyone I lost and their sparks will never find peace if we leave Cybertron the way it is."

Blaster made a small noise of acknowledgment as he, too, watched the sky. "That is certainly one way of looking at it."

* * *

Starscream's team enjoyed far nicer accommodations now that they lived at Darkmount. By now, they had learned about the demise of their Earth base, the Nemesis, but none of them cared. They were back home and no one planned to return to that mud ball planet if they could help it.

The Decepticons, now known through the ranks as "Megatron's Decepticons", commandeered a whole floor of Darkmount, claiming their personal quarters and kicking out lower ranked soldiers. Currently, they all hung out in Soundwave's massive new workshop, which was not connected to his personal quarters this time. It had plenty of tables and an energon dispenser so it doubled quite nicely as a lounge room.

Soundwave was filling out a diagnostic report on Blitzangel after they all returned from the outpost raid. Shockwave usually did the diagnostics himself, though Starscream still didn't know why she needed one after every single mission. But since Shockwave insisted on it, Starscream decided to have Soundwave run the diagnostic this time for the sole purpose of irritating Shockwave. Also, he liked keeping his own team under his thumb and not catering to Shockwave's whims.

"Starscream!" Megatron bellowed as he stormed into the room. "Soundwave tells me you found an Autobot information hub. When were you going to share this with me?"

Starscream did not move from his comfortable position of slouching in his chair, feet propped up on the table. Without breaking a beat, he offered up a memory stick with two fingers. "Here's your copy."

Megatron took it from him, frowning. "Why do I get the feeling not everything you found is on here?"

Starscream shrugged. "You know everything at my disposal goes toward the Decepticon cause," he said pleasantly.

"So you say."

Megatron continued to scowl at Starscream's calm smile. When Starscream was happy, it made him suspicious. Starscream smiled more widely. Seeing Megatron suspicious made him happy.

Megatron scowled for a while longer and then let it go. Without proof of his suspicions, there was no point arguing with the seeker about it. He usually learned Starscream's plans sooner or later anyway.

"Starscream, Soundwave, come with me. We have future plans to discuss."

"Diagnosis complete," Soundwave announced, and then nodded to Megatron, following him out the door.

Starscream actually let Soundwave leave first. He wasn't bitter at all that Soundwave had reported his findings to Megatron. Starscream knew he would. That was why he had the memory stick ready and waiting when Megatron demanded it. Of course, his leader was correct in saying he didn't get a full duplicate of what Starscream had found, but he also knew Megatron could do nothing about it. It was so wonderful when everyone played their parts according to plan.

Starscream paused on his way out the door and looked to his two seekers. "You two, take her out on some drills and send me a report on her behavior." He smiled. "Let's play this game of keep away from Shockwave a little longer."

Skywarp saluted, grinning as Starscream left. He liked that idea as well. Shockwave was such a killjoy. "Well Starscream's in a good mood today."

"That usually means he's up to something," Thundercracker said flatly.

"As long as the plan doesn't involve me, I don't care." Skywarp meandered over to the waiting Blitzangel who still stood at attention, waiting for further orders. "So what do you think of this piece of hardware? She's kind of fun to have around. She certainly makes less work for us." He leaned his arm on the top of her head, using her to hold up his weight.

"Don't do that," Thundercracker frowned.

"What? She doesn't care. Do you?" Skywarp grabbed her head and made her shake it.

Thundercracker was not amused. "You know, you still never told me why you went back to that asteroid to get her. You almost scrapped yourself doing it. Why risk it?"

A shrug from Skywarp. "Well... you know me. I love the danger. I just wanted the thrill of beating the explosion. That's all."

Thundercracker continued to look at him expectantly, not buying the story. Skywarp began to fidget. He always had the hardest time keeping his mouth shut when Thundercracker looked at him like that.

"Alright, fine! I just... she was the only one that ever said they were sorry for what happened to us." Skywarp turned his head away self-consciously. "I thought that was worth something. That's all."

"I see."

"And look what we got for it," Skywarp continued, brightening again. "She's cute, right? Better than looking at Megatron's ugly can all day. I know you think so because I see you watching her all the time."

Thundercracker recoiled from the accusation. "What? No! It's not like that. I'm just trying... to watch out for her, that's all."

"Uh huh..." Skywarp was grinning that I-know-everything grin that Thundercracker always hated. "I bet you would like to have some time alone with her."

"Shut up."

"Ask her to sit on your lap. She has to do everything she's told."

Thundercracker got up. "That's disgusting. She's just a brainless drone. She's hardly even a she."

"With the femme situation around here, I doubt you have room to be picky, my friend."

Thundercracker was about to swat him one when Shockwave stepped in the doorway.

"There you are. I told Starscream to return Blitzangel to me for her diagnostics."

Skywarp grinned. "She's already done. Soundwave did it. So we don't need you. Buh bye."

Shockwave fumbled for a second, searching for a reason to get his creation away from the two seekers. Skywarp walked up to him with amusement to bodily block him from entering. Thundercracker wasn't sure, but he could have sworn Blitzangel took a step backward when Shockwave appeared.

"Well, Megatron has given me the responsibility to make sure she is in top running condition," Shockwave insisted. "I must look her over to make sure Soundwave saw to everything properly."

Skywarp frowned. "Sorry, Blinky. We have our orders, too."

"What?" Shockwave barked as the seeker slid the doors shut in his face. He immediately pressed the button to open them again, but now the room was empty.

"Skywarp," he spat as he clenched his fist. "Seekers are better left mindless and obedient." With that, he turned on his heel and stormed down the hall.


	3. Chapter 3: Underground Factions

Writer's Question: Since I got my new computer, every time I upload a chapter, no longer formats the double spacing for me. I have to go in and do it myself. With this long chapters, it takes forever! If anyone has suggestions to fix this problem. Please send me a note. And, as always, thanks for all the notes and reviews. I am happy to talk fanfics with anyone at any time. :)

Rising Generations

Chapter Three: Underground Factions

Patrols around Darkmount and the surrounding Decepticon territory were frequent. Megatron had created waves in both factions since his return to Cybertron. With the Autobot body count piling up, their security had tightened as well. A new chapter in the Autobot/Decepticon war was beginning. With the return of both Megatron and Optimus Prime to Cybertron, everything was changing. The more violent days of Cybertron were returning and everyone could feel it.

So far, the main Decepticon stronghold was running at tip-top condition without any problems to report. It was a tight ship, tighter even than the Nemesis had been while it had existed. This was good for most Decepticons. For Ransack and Beatback, however, it interfered with their orders.

Near the outreaches of the main Decepticon city, Beatback stood watch, in case any wayward soldier happened to wander by. He was a great hulk of a mech, tall and heavily built. His black and blue armor sank into the background of the dark city while fiery red optics kept watch. As Shockwave's lieutenant, he was sharp in mind and quick to correct anything that fell out of line. Usually, mechs like Beatback, heavy in the bulk and muscle department, were not quite as quick in the processor.

Not so with this Decepticon. While Shockwave usually orchestrated the battles, Beatback was always supporting him, finding any holes in Shockwave's plans. He could easily adapt any plan to fit the changing flow of battle. That was why Shockwave kept promoting him.

Shockwave, however, had no idea his lieutenant was out here this night.

While Beatback gazed keenly over the landscape, Ransack skulked in the shadows. He wasn't quite as big and bulky as his companion, but he was still a mech large enough to be a threat. Where Beatback's two optics scanned their surroundings, Ransack's thin optic band searched the shadows of an old, abandoned building for activity. His thick armor of mahogany and silver was rounder where Beatback's was sharp. The two looked quite the opposite of one another, but their missions were the same.

There came a noise from the shadows and Ransack backed up toward it, as if he didn't notice it. He leaned against the wall near the darkened, open doorway of the building and looked out, pretending to be casual.

"It is dangerous to be out here," a voice whispered from the dark as loudly as its owner dared. It sounded anxious and uncomfortable at the situation. "Spectre is not pleased the communication has been cut and demands an explanation. We don't belong up here."

Ransack looked around him calmly. "Tell Spectre this was not our doing. Megatron has returned to Cybertron along with Soundwave. Any type of radio transmission now is compromised. Soundwave is making sure nothing gets through. This was the best we could do."

As casually as possible, Ransack folded his arms and stretched his fingers towards the shadows, data stick in between them. A phantom hand retrieved it.  
"I will return with further orders," said the voice from the shadows. Then it was gone.

Beatback glanced back at Ransack, who nodded. The two silently transformed and drove back toward the tower.

* * *

Near the top of Darkmount tower, Megatron gazed out of panoramic windows at the city below. Rather, he looked at what was once a city, long ago. It was now a military metropolis, filled with bunkers, artillery storage and training facilities. All the comforts of home. And it was, indeed, good to be home. Megatron could see now that he had been ignoring his goals on Earth. Cybertron had always been his main objective. Cybertron needed him, now more than ever.

In his absence, it had grown weak, complacent, and still ever-divided. This would not do. He had to work harder now. He had to overpower those stubborn Autobots, bend them to his will, so they could see things his way. So they could see he was right. Cybertron needed to be united and strong. They needed to become one people again by any means necessary. Megatron had known since his creation day that he had been built for one thing: to bring pride and power to Cybertron. It was high time he got back to the task at hand.

"Lord Megatron."

Megatron turned his head as Shockwave appeared in the doorway. He was shadowed by his two lieutenants, as he often was. Megatron narrowed his optics at them. His instincts told him there was something off about the two mechs, though he couldn't place his finger on what. Until Megatron could ascertain more about them, he chose to keep his distance.  
Megatron's mere glare alone inspired Shockwave to leave Ransack and Beatback at the door before approaching his leader by the window.

"As a loyal soldier to the Decepticon cause, I must advise against this action," Shockwave said. "Cybertron has progressed greatly in your absence, Lord Megatron. Going down this path, going back to attacking the Autobots for energy again, this isn't progressive thinking. We were rich in both energy and armament before you destroyed the space warp gate. We had trade, allies..."

One look from Megatron led Shockwave's argument to trail off as his leader returned his gaze to the city. "You are a fool if you believe for one microsecond that any one of your business partners would come to our aid in a full-scale assault on the Autobots, Shockwave. Yes, they are happy to do business as long as they can safely line their own pockets with money. But they will not risk the lives of their kind for any cause of ours, for any reason. They would merely fuel our war in hopes of us wiping each other out."

"Lord Megatron, you can't possibly infer that any of the Decepticon allies would want to see their trade partners extinct. They would lose money. Surely in the interest of profit no one would want that."

Megatron was silent for a moment. "I have seen the galaxy, Shockwave. Before there were Decepticons, a long time ago. I saw what the rest of creation-the rest of the _natural_ universe-thinks of us. Millions of years can continue to pass and it will not change the opinion all other nations and planets have of us. You can make deals and business propositions all you want, but they will not think of you as their equal."

Megatron looked down at his fist as he clenched it, his anger from past memories dripping into his emotions. "We will settle our business here. We will unite Cybertron into one power. Then we will show the rest of the universe how to show us proper respect."

Shockwave was silent for a moment, then nodded. "As you command, Lord Megatron." He turned to walk out. "I will prepare the troops."

Shockwave left his leader to brood by the window. His two lieutenants followed dutifully after him down the hall. After a few paces, a short Decepticon with large, purple optics stepped into his way.

"So, what's the final answer from his eminence?" Swindle demanded without a proper greeting. "If I sent my team out to repair the warp gate, chances are we could at least get a probationary period from the Alliance and-"

Shockwave shook his head. "Megatron is firm in both his decision and actions. He is not going to change his mind."

Shockwave started walking again, Swindle at his heels. He was used to Ransack and Beatback always following the Cybertron commander and took no notice of them as he cut them off to trail after Shockwave.

"But-but doesn't Megatron realize our damages here? Profits are plummeting! I've lost nearly 67% of my business! There's only a few planets left to trade with unless we want to go the interstellar route. And the cost just to ship the goods is going to bring up the price for everyone involved. That's not acceptable."

Shockwave kept walking. "I'm afraid Mighty Megatron is more interested in funding his war than your business."

Swindle halted as Shockwave and his lieutenants continued on.

"But," he squawked, "but they're the same thing!"

* * *

Their orders were to prepare for battle; they would be off to Autobot territory shortly. Thundercracker walked the halls, looking for the rest of his team. He spotted Blitzangel further down the way. Since Starscream's programming upgrade, she had developed a habit of wandering when she wasn't under orders to do anything specific. Thundercracker found the behavior odd. He never saw her actually walking around, he would just find her in various places with no reasons he could fathom for her to be there. She would always follow obediently after him if he called.  
He was about to do just that again when Angel couched down and extended her hand to something in the shadows. Something dark with red optics growled. Ravage.

Blitzangel remained motionless, hand extended. Thundercracker recalled her doing this before, back at the Nemesis, before her redesign and reprogramming. He tipped his head curiously. Wasn't her core processing wiped? Why was she mimicking past motions of her old personality? And, for that matter, why need to get in Ravage's good graces in the first place?

The robotic feline crept out of the shadows, muscle cords taut and alert, and extended his nose curiously as far as he dared. Blitzangel didn't move. Ravage crept carefully closer. Then the sound of heavy footfalls approached. Ravage growled at the female and skittered off back into the darkness. Blitzangel stood, looking toward the direction in which he'd left. No emotion played on her face.

"Here you are," Skywarp, the owner of the heavy footfalls, called as he rounded the corner. "Didn't you get the notice, 'Cracker? We leave for another raid soon."

Thundercracker shook himself of his curiosities and put on his battle face. "Yeah. I'm ready."

Skywarp moved past him to address the female Decepticon. "Come on, Blitzy. Let's go fight Autobots. Here girl, come on." He slapped his thighs as if he were calling a dog. "Come here, Blitzy. Come on."

"You calling me?" Blitzwing asked as he walked by. He clearly did not appreciate the tone.

"No, not you," Skywarp insisted. "The smaller, prettier Blitz."

Blitzwing frowned. "Better think of something else so there's no confusion."

Skywarp huffed. "What? Like call her 'Angel' instead? That's a stupid name. I just won't talk to you during battle. How about that, Blitzwing?"

Blitzwing just marched off, grumbling in response.

Skywarp cared not whether he approved. Blitzwing kept to his own, as did he. The two triple changers, Blitzwing and Astrotrain, often hung around the more soft-spoken Octane, just as the seekers stuck with each other. Blitzangel wasn't one of them, but they treated her like she was. She was seeker property; Starscream saw to that. The team kept her as their own, just as each team kept to its own kind.

There were two triple changers, however, that kept to themselves. Shockwave's lieutenants, Ransack and Beatback, did not spend time with anyone but each other and their superior. They didn't even give the other triple changers in the base a second glance. They did, however, seem to have a strange interest in Blitzangel, something Thundercracker noticed and wasn't too happy about. They looked at her longer than most curious mechs who saw her around. There was intent in their optics.

Thundercracker had been around Starscream long enough to know when someone was plotting. These two were definitely up to something. What they were after, he wasn't sure. All Thundercracker knew was that he really didn't like the way they looked at Blitzangel. It brought a surge of protectiveness in his system when he saw them look at her that way. He tried not to spend too much time attempting to interpret those feelings. He told himself he was being protective of his team, nothing more.

Even Skywarp was a bit leery of the two when they came by. His playful grin turned into a tight line as the lieutenants walked into the room. As the triple changers approached, Skywarp pretended he didn't see them.

"We better get going, Megatron's going to want us on the front lines. See you boys on the battlefield."

He shouldered past Beatback, the larger of the two, giving him a warning glance as he passed. Blitzangel followed obediently behind with Thundercracker bringing up the rear. He, too, gave the lieutenants a warning look, signaling that he knew they were up to something. He shielded the femme from their sight with his wingspan and the three marched off to report to Megatron and Starscream.

* * *

A phalanx of Autobot engines roared towards the source of the distress signal. With Megatron in charge on Cybertron again, the Decepticons were right back to doing their usual. In this instance, they were attacking an Autobot energy refinery. It was one of only few on the planet. Cybertron's natural resources were limited. Most of the energy for both sides was gained through trade. The Autobots mainly exported metal and technology. The Decepticons exported mostly weapons, but with their local space warp gate out of commission and both sides currently banned from using it when it did come online, their options for acquiring new energy were limited.

The Decepticons had been attacking outposts for the past few weeks, gaining territory against the unprepared Autobots. Ultra Magnus was having a difficult time countering their advances. They were too fast and too violent. The Autobots were unused to the brutal massacres the Decepticons were employing as they pressed forward. Megatron's brand of ruthless warfare had been but a distant memory for many years. The Autobots were getting a very rude wakeup call.

With Optimus Prime now on Cybertron, Ultra Magnus greatly hoped the tides would change. Prime had brought along several of his seasoned team with him back to their home planet and Ultra Magnus hoped they could teach his Autobots how to respond to this new threat.

Most of Prime's original team was responding to the distress call, as well as a few of Magnus' troops. He wanted them to see these Autobots in action. He wanted them to stop fearing the brutality of the Decepticons and begin to see what they could do against them.

Prime's Autobots seemed to sense this was their time to shine. The twins, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, were at the front of the pack, engines screaming with anticipation for battle, eager to show off their stuff. Mirage, built for speed, was close behind them. Jazz and Prowl stayed in patient formation, flanked by Kup and Springer. They didn't have anything to prove, not with what they had accomplished the last time they were there. They already had the respect they needed from the Cybertron Autobots in order to do their jobs.

Next to Kup drove the medic, Ratchet. With First Aid now on Earth, Kup wasn't sure what their best medic on Cybertron was doing in this battle. If anything seriously happened to him, they would all be in sorry shape. It appeared he might have to appoint himself for babysitting duty this time around just so there would be someone able to patch up their sorry afts afterward.  
Ultra Magnus and Optimus Prime completed the formation, making them look a fierce force indeed. Hot Rod drove in the Prime's shadow, curiosity radiating off of him. It was the first time he had lain optics on the Autobot leader since he stepped onto Cybertron. Hot Rod had to see for himself what it meant to be a Prime. He had to see what Optimus could do.

The refinery was already smoking by the time the Autobots arrived. Several crafts buzzed through the air: seeker drones, probably transporting stolen energy back to Darkmount. None of them abandoned their transport duties to attack the Autobots, though they were clearly in sight.

"Why aren't those slag heads attacking us?" Kup asked as they continued to race toward the building. "It doesn't make sense to let us get all the way up to their doorstep when they have the refinery in their control."

"Megatron wants the structure destroyed during the battle," Prowl said calmly. "He takes what he wants and then renders the rest useless to anyone. That's how Megatron works."

Springer was about to ask if they knew for sure it was Megatron behind this attack. So far, he hadn't been seen on a single raid since his destruction of the space warp gate. His answer was a heavy fusion blast that split the road under their tires, causing the Autobots to swerve and fishtail out of control. Optimus Prime, despite the heavy trailer he was pulling, swerved flawlessly out of the way, transforming into robot mode as he slid to a stop, blaster ready.

"Well, well, Optimus Prime," Megatron called from the roof of the building. "I was wondering when you would finally make it back up here. It took you long enough. Don't you ever get tired of always being one step behind me?"

His answer was a barrage of laser fire heavy enough to cause Megatron to duck out of the way to avoid severe damage.

"I think he's a bit bitter about it," Starscream smirked next to his leader.

"And I've only just begun," Megatron growled, righting himself to his full height again. "Decepticons, ATTACK!"

On his order, Decepticons spilled from the building and rained down from the sky. Autobots lurched forward to clash against them in what was probably the largest battle Cybertron had seen in quite some time.

Kup went to Hot Rod's side during the battle. The young Autobot was still too green. During Megatron's first reign of terror through Cybertron, Hot Rod had taken cover below the top level with a group of neutrals. He had only joined the Autobots shortly before Optimus Prime left on the Arc expedition, with Megatron close behind him. Though involved in a few skirmishes, Hot Rod had never seen the full brutality of what the Decepticon army was capable of. If it were up to Kup, the brash young Autobot never would. But with Megatron's return, that seemed merely a pipe dream. The best the old Autobot could do was introduce him to the fray and watch his back the best he could.

"Stay next to me, kid," Kup ordered as he fired in the sky. "You keep your processor cool and stay smart in battle, you hear me?"

Hot Rod's optics were a bit wider than usual. His regular cocky attitude was gone, replaced by awe and a bit of fear in the face of the melee.  
"Yeah, Kup, I gotcha."

"You go revving around like some hot shot, you're going to get yourself killed."

No sooner had Kup said that, then the twins ran into his view.

"Look bro, seeker clones!" Sideswipe announced as he pointed to the sky.

"Haven't seen those in a while," Sunstreaker confirmed. "Give me a leg up, let's have some fun!"

Sideswipe cupped his hands and Sunstreaker stepped onto them with one foot. The red Autobot hefted his brother into the sky, just right for him to catch the tail end of a black and dark red seeker clone as it jetted by. Sunstreaker scrambled onto its back and jerked at the steering mechanisms on the wings, causing the clone to do a loop-the-loop and run nose first into the ground.

Sunstreaker jumped off at the last minute, landing gracefully not too far from where he started.

"Woo! Me next, me next!" Sideswipe cheered.

"You two are insane!" Kup barked at them. "That's dangerous!"

Sunstreaker seemed unconcerned by the danger. "You think these are bad, try fighting the ones who still have their processors intact."

* * *

In the middle of the fray, Optimus Prime had blazed a trail right up to the front of the refinery. Decepticons parted out of his way as he charged with his blaster firing. Once the front doors were clear, he motioned to the Autobots behind him.

"Ultra Magnus, Jazz, Mirage, Blaster, go inside. Locate any survivors you can and get them out of there."

Blaster transformed out of Mirage's passenger seat, ready for action. He usually didn't go into the bigger battles due to his expertise elsewhere, but he had asked to come along this time. He needed an outlet to vent his frustrations toward the Decepticons. Even if he was only part of the rescue mission, at least he was doing something. He nodded to Optimus Prime, weapon in hand, before disappearing into the building with the rest of the team.

Optimus paused and looked around for Ratchet. He would be the most useful if survivors were located, but the medic was nowhere to be seen. He must have been caught up in the battle early. That's how it was with war. Leaders had to be flexible with their strategies. Battle always changed everything. Optimus left his rescue team and ran off to join his comrades in the fray.

* * *

Megatron oversaw the carnage unraveling before him. He wasn't yet ready to join the battle himself. He wanted to savor the smell of war for a moment longer. This was true Cybertron. Both sides were proud and strong, unafraid of battle or death. There was pride here. There was power here. It was beautiful. But Megatron didn't let it distract him for long. The goal was to win the battle, not just be a part of it. There was still victory to earn.

"Starscream," Megatron called to the tall Decepticon beside him. "Release your team. Show them why you are the seeker elite. I do believe many here have forgotten."

"I'll be happy to send out the reminder," Starscream grinned. He turned to his wingmates.

"Thundercracker, Skywarp. Show those clones what damage a real seeker can do. Leave no Autobot unscathed."

Thundercracker put on his business face while Skywarp grinned at the promise of scrapping himself some Autobots. The two took off into the air.

Next, Starscream patted the rail. Blitzangel jumped on top of it with balanced ease, as lightly as if she were Lazerbeak.

"Look at those Autobot fools down there," he said to her. "They fight a futile battle against us and you're going to show them why."

Blitzangel looked at the battle below her, stock-still, emotionless. Somehow, it made Starscream smile.

"Sic 'em."

Blitzangel leaped from the railing, transforming in midair. The two Decepticons behind her had to shield their faces from the after-burn of her powerful thrusters as she took off into the sky. Starscream jumped off the roof after her, transforming and jetting off into the sky.

The Decepticon femme was already far ahead of him, zipping through space, engines screaming. She looped over the battle and then dipped lower, tearing through the Autobot side of the field at ground level. Autobots dove left and right to get out of her way. They could hear those engines screaming like a banshee, announcing her presence, and it was certainly enough to throw them off guard. Several Decepticons used the interruption to gain the advantage over the stunned Autobots on the ground.

Prowl was one of the last to dive as the thin, but powerful, jet mode Decepticon zipped past. Her appearance was what he had been waiting for. He got to his feet again and turned to race after the screaming jet to get a better look, but something much taller landed in front of him.

"Where do you think you're going, Autobot?" Starscream spat. "Wouldn't you rather fight a high-ranking Decepticon than some puny attack dog?"

Prowl narrowed his optics, but didn't say anything. If that was what Starscream wanted, he would give him the fight he was asking for. The seeker actually squawked in surprise when Prowl attacked without holding back.

* * *

Inside the refinery, the rescue team worked as quickly as they could. Luckily, the halls were designed for vehicle mode traffic hauling energy in and out. The rescue team was able to load bodies of the wounded onto Ultra Magnus, who, in turn, felt lucky there were wounded to save this time. Usually it was just a trail of death. They must have arrived too early for the Decepticons to finish the job.

Mirage was helping one of the few coherent workers limp toward transportation when two Decepticons rounded the corner. They were none other than Shockwave's lieutenants, Ransack and Beatback.

"Autobots," Ransack spat at them. "This is now Decepticon property. You risk your sparks coming here."

Both sides pulled out their weapons simultaneously and began to fire. Ultra Magnus, stuck in vehicle mode with his cargo, swerved and pulled around to get the wounded out of the line of fire. Jazz, Mirage and Blaster moved to cover him.

"There's two of them and three of us," Jazz said. "We can take them."

On that mark, the two triple changers both transformed into their hover modes and raced for the Autobots. They were heavily armored in front, making their bodies the perfect battering rams. Without anywhere to hide, the three Autobots took the brunt of the hit and were sent sprawling in different directions.

"Hardly satisfying," Beatback growled. He walked over to a disoriented Blaster, planting his foot on his chest. "Autobots go down so easy." He dug in his heel and Blaster flinched as the glass of his chest compartment cracked.

"Blaster," Jazz called as he scrambled to find his balance. His motor relays had been knocked out of whack from the collision. They were having a hard time stabilizing. Ransack slugged the Autobot in the face and Jazz went down again.

"So, you're Blaster," Beatback said with amusement in his voice. He grabbed the orange Autobot by the top of his head. Though Blaster was slightly taller, the heavier triple changer had no problem yanking him to his feet. He slammed Blaster against the wall, pinning him by the neck, and scrutinized him with sharp optics.

"Yes, you must be him. Do you want to know how I got my name, Autobot?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Blaster choked, struggling against the hold on him.

That answer seemed to anger the Decepticon and he shoved him against the wall again. "Ever been to Helix, Autobot? I found a sweet, young thing there, crushed, mostly dead under a balcony."

Blaster's optics widened with realization and horror.

"Her spark was crushed, but she was holding on somehow," Beatback continued. "I asked her what she was so desperately trying to live for. You know what she said? She said she had to wait; she was meeting someone. And then she gave me your name.

"Of course, I had to put the poor little thing out of her misery. I decided to wait for you in her place and send you off to Primus where you could keep your appointment." The Decepticon frowned in disgust. "Fortunately for you, I didn't have all day. So I took her name with me until you two could finally meet again."

Blaster looked even more horrified as Beatback lifted his weapon to the Autobot's chest, right above the spark. "Better late than never, I suppose."

An invisible Mirage suddenly barreled into the heavy Decepticon. Jazz managed to gain his balance long enough to kick at Ransack at the same time. Mirage grabbed Blaster and the three Autobots fled from the room, barely taking their lives with them.

* * *

Ratchet fought a triplechanger of his own, getting in a few good shots and wounding Astrotrain. Just when he was going to turn to find the next Decepticon, one found him. Engines screamed in his direction. Ratchet turned around just in time to feel something kick him solidly on the chest. He fell on his back, sliding several feet from the impact. His attacker remained crouched on his chest.

It was the female Decepticon. She was nearly face to face with him as she plunged her hand through the glass of his chest cavity and wrapped it around some very vital circuitry. It was as if she knew exactly what she was doing. But so did Ratchet. The second her hand was inside, Ratchet grabbed her arm, fingers digging into the joint connectors. He could see it in her face. She knew if she pulled, he could yank her arm right off at the elbow.

The femme let go and withdrew, but she wasn't done. If she couldn't get in, she was going to attack him from the outside. Arm blades out, she charged them up, ready to slice him through. Ratchet raised his arms, processor spinning as he tried to come up with a plan to defend himself. But a fellow Autobot did that for him.

There was a heavy clank as Sideswipe's foot connected with the female Decepticon's side. The force of his heavy body caused her to roll several yards before she scrambled back to her feet.

"Hands off our Docbot," Sideswipe warned her. He paused and his optics flickered in surprise when he got a better look at her. "Hey, you're kinda cute."

Blitzangel pressed her mouth in a tight line, not uttering a sound. She crouched and then lunged at the red Autobot, arm blades snapping as they cut through the air.

Sideswipe, built for speed in both vehicle and root mode, did a fairly good job of avoiding each blade. He ducked each swipe, not backing down and not really looking too concerned about his predicament. His new opponent intrigued him.

"So what's a sweet thing like you doing with all these big, ugly Decepticons?" he asked as he dodged each attack. "I doubt a single one of them knows how to treat a femme right." He ducked as a blade nearly rent his head from his shoulders. "Come on, be my femme. I'll show you a good time. What do you say?"

Sideswipe's answer was a swift kick in his chest, causing him to stumble back a few steps. He groaned from the impact, rubbing the dented spot. "You don't have a lot to say, do you beautiful?"

Blitzangel frowned at him, an expression of contempt.

"Aww... come on, don't be like that," Sideswipe said. "I'm not so bad. Why don't we be friends and see how it goes?"

Blitzangel doubled her efforts, determination in her face. She retracted her blades and charged at Sideswipe, changing up her strategy and leaping high in the air. She shot straight up, coming down on top of the Autobot headfirst in a perfect dive. Unsure what she was doing, Sideswipe stood there dumbly as she landed on top of him in a handstand, one hand on each shoulder. She kicked her heavy feet backwards, sending both of them leaning back. Sideswipe fought to keep his balance on his feet as he was bowed back, but it was too much. He was bent at an odd angle as Blitzangel's feet touched ground. She used the leverage to yank him back.

Sideswipe fell on his back and Blitzangel allowed herself to fall with him. She snapped out her blades again as her head fell on his shoulder. Stabbing backwards, both blades pierced Sideswipe's shoulders as he hit the ground. He groaned as the blades dug into his wounds when Blitzangel used them to flip herself back over, now straddling his waist. She pulled a lone blade out, the other still cooking his circuits in the wound, and she positioned herself to slice Sideswipe's head from his body.

"Bitch!" a male voice screamed as Blitzangel was hit in the shoulder by an energy weapon.

Seconds later, Sunstreaker's yellow form barreled into her and the two rolled over each other until Sunstreaker's heavier bulk landed him on top.

"Don't ever touch my brother, filthy Decepticon!" Sunstreaker growled as he punched the femme in the face.

The heavy hit stunned her enough to allow Sunstreaker the opportunity to stand and slam his foot into her midsection. Blitzangel's middle had a section of exposed wiring which gave her optimum flexibility. With it pressed under the Autobot's foot, her movement was very limited. The smaller femme struggled under the pressure, but it was hard for her to move. She slashed at Sunstreaker's leg, but his shins were well armored and it didn't hurt him much.

Sunstreaker pressed harder and he was sure the femme felt pain, but she never uttered a single sound as she struggled. Nothing. No death threats, no snarky remarks, no cries of pain. No sound at all. Sunstreaker found that curious, but he didn't have time to wonder for long.

"Stand down, Autobot," said a calm voice behind him as Sunstreaker felt the barrel of a weapon pressed against the side of his neck.

"Do not move," Thundercracker told him. "You, either." He had one arm cannon pressed into Sunstreaker's neck and the other aimed at Sideswipe. "If you stay calm, I will not shoot. Now let her up."

Sunstreaker growled, but moved his foot off the femme. She got up slowly, looking scuffed but showing no indication that she was damaged.

"Blitzangel, go," Thundercracker told her, keeping optics on both Autobots.

She stayed where she was.

"Transform and get out of here, that's an order," Thundercracker insisted.

Her optic band flickered, then she transformed, causing the ground to shudder in the wake of her powerful thrusters.

"Now," Thundercracker said to Sunstreaker. "Drop your weapon."

Sunstreaker tossed his blaster aside, scowling. "Just go ahead and slag me and get it over with, Con. I ain't got all day."

He flinched when Thundercracker fired, but it wasn't at him. Sunstreaker's weapon smoldered on the ground.

"I am an elite soldier with superior skills, Autobot," Thundercracker told him. "As such, I do not shoot unarmed enemies in the back. Nor do I beat on femmes much smaller than myself."

Sunstreaker was about to snarl a comeback when the blue seeker transformed and jetted off into the sky. The threat gone, Sunstreaker turned to check on his brother. Wounded but stable, Sideswipe rose gingerly, one hand pressed to the worst of his wounds.

"Hey 'Swipe, you okay?"

Sideswipe ignored the question as he looked to the sky with a dopey grin. "Bro, I think I'm in love."

Sunstreaker stared. "...What?"

Sideswipe's optics were still skyward. "Blitzangel... what a pretty name."

Sunstreaker frowned. He was related to a complete moron.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Combaticons received the signal from Megatron. It was time to let Bruticus loose on the battlefield, but there was a little hitch in that plan. Currently, Onslaught was having trouble rounding up his team. Blast Off was in the air somewhere, though he radioed back that he was on his way. Swindle was the only one nearby. He never got too involved in the fight. He often had a hard time shooting to kill unless his own life was in immediate danger. This was because Swindle viewed everyone as possible clients and he considered it bad business to bump off the clientèle.

Vortex and Brawl were the main problem. Vortex had the tendency to go battle crazy easily. He was out there laughing like a maniac and slicing at Autobots with his chopper blades instead of answering his radio. Brawl was a bit of the same, though he took a darker route. The heavy, bulky Decepticon didn't toy with his opponents. He would storm in amidst them, preferring to crush the metal with his bare hands, feeling the pain and death flow through his fingers.

It took a bit of coaxing and running around (and more yelling from Megatron) but finally, the Combaticons united and formed their ultimate mode: Bruticus.

The behemoth rose from the battle ground, stretching his shadow over Decepticons and Autobots alike. The Autobots scrambled out of the way as the metal monster swiped at them. Optimus Prime very much regretted his decision to send both Autobot gestalt teams to Earth.

Bruticus turned, his sights settling on Hot Rod. The brightly colored Autobot transformed and spun his wheels with a shriek to get out of his way. But in his haste to flee, his tires found uneven ground, uprooted from the battle. He spun out of control, flipping onto his side. Hot Rod transformed to regain his bearings, but it was too late. Laughing, Bruticus reached for him.

"Hot Rod!" Optimus Prime saw the young Autobot's predicament and dove to his rescue. It did little to stop the capture of either one. Both Hot Rod and Optimus Prime were held together in Bruticus' massive hand and lifted a few stories off the ground.

"Well, well, Optimus Prime," Bruticus chuckled in a low voice. "I will enjoy crushing you with my bare hand. It only takes one to scrap a puny Autobot like you."

"Bruticus has Prime and Hot Rod!" Kup barked from the ground. "Autobots, attack!"

Any Autobot within hearing distance rallied to the call and opened fire. Prowl, who finally let a damaged Starscream escape into the air, turned to the aid of his leader as well.  
Bruticus held up his free arm as a shield when several Autobots opened fire. Seeing he was distracted, Optimus Prime made his move. He managed to slip one leg up and pressed the hand open as much as he could.

"Now, Hot Rod, go!"

The young Autobot froze. There was no way he was going to live down letting the legendary Autobot leader die for him.

"Prime, sir. I can't just leave you here to-"

"On his back," Optimus hastily interrupted. "Bruticus has three points on his back. Hit them and he falls apart, go! Don't let me down!"

Optics wide, Hot Rod wriggled his way out of the large hand and scrambled up Bruticus' arm like a scared rabbit. The massive Decepticon didn't notice until Hot Rod was up on the shoulder. From his vantage point, Hot Rod had no hope of hitting the back straight below him. Behind Bruticus was the refinery building. It was better than hitting the ground, but still a bit of a drop. Hot Rod prepared himself. It was better than nothing.

The young Autobot launched himself from the behemoth's shoulder before Bruticus could grab him. Hot Rod twisted in the air as he fell, cleanly hitting all three spots on his way down. Kup would have been proud. It was the most accurate firing he had ever done. True to Prime's words, Bruticus froze and was already beginning to fall apart. Hot Rod prepared himself for a harsh landing.

It wasn't quite as violent as he expected. Hot Rod landed on someone else standing on the building, someone bigger who cushioned his fall. Hot Rod lay there, amazed that he had received as little damage as he had.

The body beneath Hot Rod growled, "Get off me, Autobot! I'll scrap you back to the Creator!"

Hot Rod's optics grew to twice their size when he realized the body under him was none other than Megatron himself. The Decepticon leader flung the Autobot from him and stalked forward, cannon already powering up.

"You will not live long enough to regret this," Megatron vowed.

Hot Rod scrambled backwards in a panic as Megatron raised his cannon. But he did not get a chance to fire as another body landed on top of him, one more his size. As Bruticus fell apart, Optimus Prime had taken the opportunity to scramble up the gestalt as well, jumping to the refinery roof at the last second, and possibly saving Hot Rod from meeting Primus before his time.

"Prime!" Megatron growled, murder in his voice. "You'll pay for this!" He yanked his elbow backwards, hitting Optimus and knocking him off.

"I think you found your true calling," Optimus chided back, not reflecting Megatron's dark mood. "You make a far better stunt mattress than a leader."

Megatron's optics flashed with rage. "I'LL SHOW YOU WHO LEADS, PRIME!" He fired like a maniac, bruised pride feeding his range.

Optimus stayed calm, dodging each attack. The refinery building took a good beating, several fires already burning now, before Megatron's cannon threatened to overheat. The building shuddered. Optimus did not take that as a good sign. The energy refineries held many volatile chemicals used inside. In the spare second he was given, Optimus charged for Hot Rod, grabbing the smaller Autobot and they both leaped off the roof.

Megatron found a moment of clarity himself and flew from the building just as it exploded. The ground rumbled and the building was engulfed in flames, signaling the end of the battle. Megatron ordered a return to base as he flew away. There was nothing left to fight over.

* * *

Starscream was in a foul mood upon arriving back at Darkmount. He was dented, battered and charred with nothing to show for it. That little black and white Autobot really took him through the wringer. He couldn't recall Prowl ever laying into any of his fellow soldiers that hard. The tactician usually oversaw the battle instead of tearing through the thick of it. Starscream allowed himself a small bit of triumph for obviously getting under Prowl's skin like that. He did so love getting into bots' processors. It would be unlikely he would be forgotten by the Autobot any time soon.

Small victories aside, Starscream still had a few issues to take up with Megatron. He found his leader brooding in his throne room, pacing back and forth in front of the large picture window overlooking his empire. Blitzangel stood next to the window, her back to it. How she ended up there, Starscream wasn't sure. Megatron might have said something to her on his way in, leading her to follow him.

"What kind of plan was that, Megatron?" Starscream demanded, announcing his entrance. "That was a huge failure!"

"Failure?" Megatron challenged. "With all the energy we gained? How dare you, Starscream?"

"Energy, yes. But the refinery was totaled. A true victory would be putting it under Decepticon territory so we could _continue _to make more energy. Now it's useless! You never think ahead, Megatron! That's what makes you such a horrible leader!"

Megatron charged his cannon in warning. "And you never consider the consequences of activating your voice box without thinking."

Starscream ignored the warning. "We are just doing the same old things we did on Earth! But we're not there anymore, are we? We can't destroy every place we plunder; we have to live on this planet! We have to think forward. But you're stuck in the past, Megatron. You're in a rut and you're not getting out. It's time to accept your time is over. You need to step down and let a new leader with new ideas take control."

Megatron stayed where he was. "You want my throne, Starscream? Come take it from me."

Starscream was startled at the blatant invitation to try and take what he wanted. His optics glanced over at the femme standing stock-still nearby.

"Blitzangel, attack!"

She instantly unsheathed her blades at the order. Though still scuffed and damaged herself from the previous fight, she looked ready for battle.

"Attack Megatron!" Starscream shrieked. "Kill him!"

Megatron calmly raised his hand to her. "Stand down, Blitzangel. You will not be attacking."

"Yes you will! That's an order! Kill Megatron! Now!"

"Kill Starscream," Megatron suggested with a smirk. "Yes, do away with your air commander, femme."

"No! No, no, no!" Starscream squawked. "Not me! Kill him! Kill him!"

Through the argument, Blitzangel's head swung from side to side with each order, but she had yet to take action. Finally, she froze, twitching slightly as if she had locked up.

"What are you doing?" Starscream commanded. "Listen to me, femme! Do as I command!"

"It appears neither one of us has the power to override the other's command," Megatron surmised. Though he didn't much like the idea of that. He made a mental note to see Shockwave about addressing that small problem.

Beatback stepped in. The mech had a heavy presence all his own when he entered a room. He was just as scuffed and dented as everyone else. Those with serious injuries were taken off duty first. Those who could still function after a battle were sent directly back to their posts until they could each take their turn for repair.

Beatback nodded formally to his leader. "Shockwave has requested the femme be brought down to the lab to assess her damage. I was sent to escort her, Lord Megatron."

Megatron frowned. "I fail to see why she needs an escort when she's perfectly capable of following orders herself." He glanced at the femme. "Well, mostly capable. Very well. Tell Shockwave I will be down momentarily; I have something I would like to discuss with him."

Starscream shot a glance at the femme. Megatron was going to attempt to get a leg up in her programming, he just knew it. But Starscream was already plotting. One thing he had over Megatron was that he knew how to program himself. All he had to do was get alone with the femme and his data pad and his orders would override Megatron's.

As Blitzangel followed Beatback out of the room, Starscream's brain whirred. His next plot was in process. No matter what Shockwave programmed in her, he would fix it to suit him.

Meanwhile, Beatback led the small femme deeper and deeper into the base. Darkmount wasn't just a tall tower, but also a deep bunker the dove far into the ground. Usually, the lower levels were reserved for storage, lower ranking soldiers and special projects as well as safety bunkers. Soundwave just happened to be occupying one when Blitzangel and her escort walked past.  
The communications expert had not gone to battle. He had other projects to tend to. As such, his tapes were off wandering elsewhere while he worked. When he saw the two Decepticons walk by, he unplugged himself from his machines and stepped out into the hall.

"Explain purpose for being here," he warbled.

Beatback paused, irritation showed in his stance for just a moment before it went neutral again. "I'm following Shockwave's orders. He said to bring the femme for repairs."

"Shockwave's lab: upper level. Explain purpose for being here," Soundwave repeated.

Beatback was quiet for a moment. "He's in one of the lower labs today," he said without turning around. "I don't know why, I'm just doing what I was told."  
Soundwave gazed down at Blitzangel. She definitely looked like she had been in a fight, possibly with more than just one or two Autobots.

"Leave femmebot here. Repairs will be seen to," Soundwave said.

At this, Beatback did turn around and he did not look happy. "I'm sorry. I can't do that. I have my orders."

Soundwave stepped between him and Blitzangel. "Repairs will be completed, by whom is irrelevant."

In a blink, Beatback has a blaster in his hand. It was pressed against the glass of Soundwave's chest before he could react.

"The femme is not going with you," he said in a low voice.

Soundwave froze. His spark wasn't in his chest, but that was the space where his cassettes resided. He must have had at least one in there. Soundwave would protect them with his life. He wouldn't do anything stupid to let them get hurt. Beatback felt he had the upper hand.

Until a blade was pressed to his throat: Blitzangel's blade. Beatback frowned. Of course she would choose the tape player over him. Soundwave often went with the seekers on missions, Blitzangel would consider Soundwave on her team. He hadn't thought of that. The femme was only supposed to move when told specifically to do so. This wasn't in the plan.

Blitzangel stood there, waiting for Beatback to lower his weapon, her face neutral. He would not. The three of them seemed to be at a stalemate. Then, suddenly, for Blitzangel all went dark.

* * *

Back at Iacon, Jazz was looking for someone. The Autobot team had returned from battle looking similar to the Decepticons. Most were charred and dented. Jazz himself had a few scorch marks that needed to be buffed out of his chassis, but most could still carry on with their duties until the more serious wounds were cared for. Right now, all medical attention was reserved for the survivors pulled from the refinery. Everyone else could wait.

When Jazz poked his head into the med bay, however, Ratchet was nowhere to be seen. There were other medics around, but according to them, Ratchet - their most seasoned medical engineer - had stayed only long enough to put the most serious cases in stasis and then excused himself. That didn't seem right to Jazz. Though he wasn't always the biggest stickler for responsibility, this seemed like something that shouldn't just be shrugged off. All he wanted to know was what Ratchet was doing. He was sure it was important, whatever it was. As soon as Jazz's curiosity was sated, he was sure he would be satisfied.

Only Ratchet wasn't anywhere to be found. He was unreachable on radio as well. That was unlike him.

Jazz wandered all around the base, poking his nose into every corner. He passed Optimus Prime, but decided not to ask if he had seen Ratchet. This was because Prime had made a new best friend in Hot Rod. At least as far as Hot Rod was concerned. Since Bruticus and the fight with Megatron, Hot Rod seemed to have found a new idol and was shadowing Optimus whenever he could, excitedly talking his audios off like he was newly sparked. Jazz didn't want to announce that their medical officer was missing in front of the younger Autobot, so he let the two go.

Other Autobots passed by as he searched. Jazz poked his head in the tower rec room to see if Ratchet had just ducked in to get some energon, but the only ones in there were Blaster and Mirage. They sat quietly together, the former a far darker vision than his usual chatty self. The two had become closer lately, just right out of the blue. And what Jazz had heard back at the refinery between Blaster and that Decepticon was certainly not what he expected to hear. Mirage probably knew more about the story than Jazz did, so he let them be and continued on his way.

Finally, Jazz decided to turn to the one bot he always went to for answers when he couldn't find them himself. Prowl's radio was actually off, too, but he always kept a homing beacon up on a secret channel especially for Jazz in case he ever needed to find him.

Jazz tracked his signature to the closed door of a meeting room. His hand paused mid-knock, wondering if he was poking his nose someplace it wasn't welcome. But he finally knocked anyway, sending Prowl his signature to let him know who it was.

The door opened by remote signal and Jazz stepped inside. There he found Prowl and Ratchet both looking at a screen.

"Here's what I pulled from my own memory banks from the battle," Ratchet was saying, not even looking Jazz's way as he came in, the door closing and locking behind him.

"Did you get a good look at the femme?" Prowl asked.

"Ooh yeah," Ratchet confirmed, motioning to the broken glass on his chest. "I don't wear it this way because it's trendy."

"So you faced her directly," Prowl surmised. He was the reason Ratchet had been invited into the battle in the first place.

"That and I saw her fight the twins as well," Ratchet confirmed. "It was a very educating experience, to say the least."

"You're still hung up on that Decepticon femme?" Jazz asked.

He was ignored.

"So what did you find out?" Prowl asked Ratchet.

Ratchet flipped on a still frame from his own memory banks. It was a picture of Blitzangel sitting on the medical officer's chest, taken from his perspective.

"She goes by the designation Blitzangel. I had Blurr research the name. No matches. Not that it means anything; we have very few female Decepticons in the databases. Not to mention, it's strangely of Earth origin. But again, that doesn't mean anything. Most femmes changed their names when they fled Cybertron. Or, it's possible one of Megatron's underlings changed it for her when they found her."

"Just tell me the possibilities, Ratchet," Prowl insisted. "Is it feasible that this femme-"

"Is a reformatted Crystal?" Ratchet finished for him. Jazz moved closer, a little more interested now. "It's within the realm of possibility, but highly unlikely. Here."

He pressed a button on the remote, bringing up two rotating schematics, one of Crystal's design, and a rough model of Blitzangel. "The two are close to the same size, but that's about all they have in common." He flipped back to the initial closeup of the Decepticon femme. "This Blitzangel is something else entirely. The shape of the face is different, not to mention that optic band. That's some serious surgery right there. What would be the point of them digging out her optic sockets for a band?"

Ratchet pointed to her elbow joint in the picture. "These ball joints aren't the same kind I installed in Crystal. They're designed to handle those heavy blades of hers without reducing her speed. This here," he then pointed to her midsection., "see all these exposed wires? A major gutting job. A, armor had to be cut out for maximum flexibility and B, an extremely complicated back strut system would have to be installed to support her top and lower half without that armor. And then, of course, there's her alt mode.

"The bottom line is whether this is either a chop job of her original body or an entirely new one, we're talking months worth of work," Ratchet said. "It doesn't fit the time line. It's nearly impossible to do the work required in the time given."

"So it's more likely that she is a Decepticon femme found in space and working freely with the Decepticons," Prowl said.

"I don't know about freely," Ratchet replied. He brought up another picture: two images side by side. The left was a close up of Blitzangel's face, the right was one of the seeker clones. Both of their faces looked completely blank. "Do those expressions look similar?"

"You're saying the Decepticons reprogrammed this femme to work for them?" Jazz blurted out.

"I'm saying it's within the realm of possibility. Sideswipe claims he saw the femme express some kind of personality, but it still remains to be seen." Ratchet flipped off the screen and turned to the two seconds. "Medical expertise aside, this femme is wracking up a body count of Autobots by the day. I cannot see Crystal participating in any type of hateful activity, let alone the systematic extinguishing of sparks. I sincerely pray it isn't her."

Prowl nodded and stayed quiet.

"Now if you'll excuse me," Ratchet said. "I really need to get back to the medical bay."

As he left, both Prowl and Jazz got a notice from Optimus Prime himself that there was something going on they needed to be aware of. They followed Ratchet out of the meeting room, then turned the opposite way toward the main command center.

* * *

In the command center at the top of the tower, Optimus leaned over the form of Ultra Magnus, who sat at the computer.

"My underground intelligence just confirmed it," Ultra Magnus was saying, "Darkmount is on high security alert. No one has yet determined why. It's speculated to be an infiltration alert, but..."

"But it's none of our teams that you know of," Optimus finished for him.

"Right. I've been confirming it with all my team leaders. Whomever the Decepticons are looking for, I don't think it's one of mine."

"The Decepticons are always having trouble in their ranks," Jazz said as he stepped into the room. "'Ol Megs is probably chasing Screamer around again for trying to kill him."

"Somehow I doubt it," Optimus said. "Let's keep our audios to the ground and make sure whatever's going on over there isn't a problem for us."

Ultra Magnus nodded. "Already on it."

* * *

Cybertron aged the deeper it went. Levels and levels beneath the surface, the metal was older, the technology more primitive, the tunnels smaller. Darkness grew with the depth, darkness from lack of energy to power lights, and darkness from the history the tunnels contained.

Beatback didn't like being down this deep. He was a big mech and the tunnels were small, just slightly taller and wider than he was. Even in bigger areas, he could feel the invisible gravity of layers and layers of metal above him pressing down. It was suffocating, but he had no one to blame but himself for the predicament he was in. Well, himself and Ransack. They couldn't go back to Darkmount now, not after what they had done. Doing that would mean certain death. Their only option had been the tunnels.

The orders had been to steal the femme, Blitzangel, without incident. It was supposed to be a swift, silent mission without ruining Beatback or Ransack's cover. But when Soundwave tried to interfere, Beatback lost his patience. Even then, he probably could have explained away pulling a weapon on the communications officer. Decepticons often did such posturing to continue to establish rank over each other. But when Blitzangel moved without being ordered, Ransack had taken it upon himself to move out of the shadows and offline the femme. That, among other things they had to do to get out of Darkmount, ensured they would not be welcome back. Warning sirens were screaming for the two Decepticons when they fled below the surface.

Darkstar looked just as unhappy to see Beatback as he looked to be back down here again. He was loathe to disappoint Darkstar after all they had been through together, but it couldn't be helped now and he kept any excuses to himself. Right now he had to get used to being back in the tunnels again. It was possible that he could be there for a long time.

In the small cavern that passed for their med bay, the unconscious Blitzangel was stretched out on an examining table. It was the only one they had. Bare wires and cables hung out of the ceiling and walls. Instruments were stashed in any corner they would fit. There wasn't much room to move around, but it was all they had.

"So this is she," Darkstar said as she looked over Blitzangel's body. "The femme who fights with the Decepticons."

Beatback nodded, his face serious, his posture sharp and tall in her presence. "They call her Blitzangel."

Catscratch skulked in the shadows, fingers twitching as she circled the table, itching to get them into her new patient.

"Where did they get her?" Darkstar asked.

"I am not certain," Beatback responded. "Megatron has been keeping his business to himself since he arrived on Cybertron. If he told Shockwave, Shockwave did not tell us. All I know is that one of his seekers brought in a body from space and Megatron had Shockwave rebuild and reformat her into that. She's been the Decepticons' little pet ever since."

Catscratch had already snuck in while Darkstar's attention was turned. She took very little time to open up Blitzangel's head and chest and plug in all sorts of devices. She balanced a battered lap computer on her thigh as she perched on the side of the table and inspected her findings on the screen.

Darkstar didn't stop her, but she did keep a watchful eye.

"So it is as you reported, Beatback. This femme did not follow Megatron of her own will. She was their slave to do with as they wished."

"Exactly," he confirmed.

"Then she is fortunate we saved her when we did." Darkstar turned to Catscratch and her computer. "So what have you found?"

"This coding stinks of that slagging Shockwave's shoddy programming," Catscratch confirmed. "This was definitely an attempt to erase her former personality and make her obedient to any and all orders. She's lucky her personal files didn't get corrupted with this horrible hack job."

Darkstar leaned closer. "You mean her original memories are still intact?"

Catscratch chewed on her lip as she typed.

"With a mess like this, who knows what's still intact. It's might all be in here somewhere. Whoever created this femme, his programming skills were solid. But Shockwave still did a number on this processor. Because of the programming, he had to do an overwrite instead of the traditional memory wipe. And I would say at least one other Decepticon tried to alter the programming as well. This whole code is just a mishmash of different programmers having their way with it."

She turned and looked up at Darkstar. "Can I please play with it? So much different coding, I could separate each style and maybe-"

"No," Darkstar told her with authority. "No dissecting this one, physically or mentally. Spectre's orders. You will keep her intact and you will fix that Decepticon reprogramming to the best of your ability. This femme has questions to answer when she comes online. And her mentality needs to be solid enough to answer them."

"Fine," Catscratch said with a hiss as she got back to work. Her mood instantly darkened when she was denied her "play."

Darkstar took the initiative to inspect Blitzangel's body herself. According to Beatback, they had just returned from a battle with the Autobots. The femme had yet to have her damage repaired. Darkstar began work on that, smoothing out the dents from what appeared to have been a punch to the face. While tending to that, she poked around up top to see how everything else was looking.

"This femme doesn't have a vocal processor. It's been removed," Darkstar announced with incredulity.

"Those dirty fraggers," Catscratch grouched from her console. There was more sympathy now in her voice for the femme on the table. "She wasn't even a soldier to them. Just a puppet."

"Indeed," Beatback confirmed. "The few Decepticons who had access to her kept her under tight guard. I do not know what all they did with her."

Catscratch let out a few more choice words as she got back to work with renewed fervor.

"I'm going to check for some spare parts," Darkstar said. "Tell Spectre we'll get this femme up and running in no time and then we'll see what she has to say."

Beatback nodded and dutifully walked out of the room while the two femmes continued to work on their patient. A few hours later, Darkstar was satisfied with the physical repairs she had performed on the body. Catscratch was completing some coding when Blitzangel began to stir.

"She's waking up," Darkstar announced.

"Get the restraints on her," Catscratch called as she saw Blitzangel's neural net light up on her system. "The Decepticons cranked her aggression levels through the roof."

Blitzangel's optic band flickered on. Darkstar lunged for the button on the table. The metal restraints slid into place over Blitzangel's arms and midsection a split second before the arm blades snapped out. Darkstar missed earning a new scar on her face by a fraction of an inch. Blitzangel growled and tried to fight the metal bands holding her down.

Darkstar gave her a few moments to calm down before speaking. "Please relax, my friend. We mean you no harm," she said in a smooth, calm voice. "We rescued you from Decepticon enslavement. We broke their hold on you. You are free now."

Blitzangel's optic band moved from one femme standing over her to the other. She took in their forms, their colors, and the fact that neither one of them had any kind of faction symbol on them. Her fists did not relax at first, but then she became aware of a piece of hardware in her body that hadn't been there before.

"Zzzzt." A strange sound came from her throat. Something was making noise.

"Yes," Darkstar encouraged. "Your new vocalizer is working. You may speak now. The Decepticons stole that ability from you."

The purple femme took a moment to test her new equipment out. She made a few more sounds before forming words. Her voice sounded strange to her, lower than it should have.

"Where- where am I?" she rasped.

"You are in our stronghold, deep in Cybertron," Darkstar replied. "You are safe here; believe me."

Blitzangel regarded the two femmes again, looking unconvinced. "Who are you?"

Darkstar smiled at her. "We are what remains of the Female Decepticons."


	4. Chapter 4: The Unknown

Author's Notes: To anyone who is interested, I'm working on background and culture notes for the fanfic series. Right now, the notes for Small Problems have been posed on my DA account. The link for my DA is in my profile. Enjoy this extremely LONG chapter!

Rising Generations  
Chapter 4: The Unknown

Darkstar bowed formally in the darkness. There was very little light in which to see. With the lack of energy, around their little hub of chambers and tunnels it was dim at best. Here in this room, however, it was even darker. That was how her leader liked it.

"Spectre, I have the current report on the femme as you requested."

In the darkest part of the room, two large red ovals glowed in the blackness. Spectre saw perfectly well in the dark. The deepest shadows were where she felt the most comfortable, even in the company of her trusted second-in-command.

"Proceed, Darkstar."

Darkstar nodded. "Catscratch confirms the femme, designation Blitzangel, was under Decepticon programming against her will. The programming has since been removed and she is online and processing information normally."

The glowing optics didn't move from the darkness. "Did she say where she came from? Or how the Decepticons captured her? Does she know the whereabouts of any others of our sisters?"

Darkstar shook her head in regret. "The Decepticons' programming left her memories extremely disjointed. Most were lost within her processor. She is having difficulty relaying anything that happened to her before we brought her online. Catscratch informed me there is a good chance she could recover at least some of those memories. Currently, Blitzangel refuses to let anyone touch her."

Spectre's optics flashed with suspicion. "She refuses?"

"In this respect, I do not blame her," Darkstar nodded. "She had been living with a base full of mechs, her free will taken from her. Who knows what other liberties they took upon her?"

"I see," Spectre said, her voice calm again. "So we have no way of knowing if she was even truly a Decepticon or a reprogrammed Autobot, do we?"

Darkstar shook her head. "Not at this time, no. We have been able to gather very little from her at this point."

"So the question is," Spectre pointed out, "can she be one of us?"

"I do believe there is much potential there," Darkstar confirmed. "Despite the aggression programmed into her by the Decepticons, she displays a very neutral personality. She has not shown animosity toward anyone since she has come online. Besides, she has nowhere to go. With her memories a blank slate, we are all she has.

"I suggest we give her a few days, let her see who we are and how we can help her. Right now she is just lost and confused. Once she has a clearer understanding of where she is and that we mean her no harm, I'm confident she will submit to another programming session to recover her memories."

"Very well," Spectre allowed. "We are certainly in no position to turn down possible recruits, especially one who has worked intimately with the higher-ranking Decepticons. And with...HIM." She refused to say the name specifically, but there was still a growl in her voice as she thought of one Decepticon mech in particular. "Please show our new member around, Darkstar, then bring her to me so I may speak to her as well."

Darkstar bowed low. "It shall be done." She backed out of the room and closed the door behind her.

Spectre was left alone in the pitch blackness. Sharp fingers dug at the armrest of her chair. No matter how long it had been, that mech still affected her. Every time she thought of him, she couldn't keep her energon from boiling. One day soon, she would face him again. She promised herself that.

* * *

Catscratch crouched outside their small med bay. No one was allowed inside until Darkstar returned. Catscratch jumped up when the second-in-command approached.

"What did Spectre say?" she asked with glee, her fingers twitching. "Let me cut the little flier open. She's going to have to get a ground mode down here anyway."

"No," Darkstar said with calm authority. "She will remain intact. We want her on our side. We will give her a few days to recover from her ordeal, then we will see if she we allow us into that processor of hers."

"And if she doesn't?" Catscratch asked with a hopeful grin. She had no qualms about working on someone who did not give her consent.

"We will decide what to do then," Darkstar said firmly.

Catscratch frowned for a moment. "Well then, I suppose there are other things I can do to keep myself busy. Ransack has been itching for my attention for quite sometime. Not that I blame her." She perked up for a moment. "What about the construction? Will that be finished soon?"

A momentary flash of emotion crossed Darkstar's face: pain laced with regret. Then it was gone and her usual stoic expression returned. "No, we've had trouble locating proper materials. It will be a while yet. See if you can't locate Ransack and get her properly rebuilt."

"Fine. But it won't be long until I'm able to attend to my other patient." Catscratch gave a knowing smile which could only be categorized as predatory as she slunk off into the dark tunnels.

Darkstar stood still. She flicked off her optics for just a moment, venting some air before gathering herself again and opening the med bay door.

Inside, Blitzangel had been pacing. It was a normal habit for an air type who had been locked in a small room. Confined spaces made them nervous. Darkstar understood. She used to be one.

Blitzangel paused when the door opened. Her stance was defensive only. She was ready to defend herself if the situation required, but she wasn't looking to hurt anyone who wasn't trying to hurt her first.

"Hello, I am Darkstar," the second-in-command said calmly.

"I remember," Blitzangel neutrally replied.

Darkstar nodded. "It seems your short term memory is working properly. That is good."

The room went quiet. Darkstar waited patiently.

"You say you are Decepticons, but you don't carry the insignia," Blitzangel accused.

"We removed them when Megatron declared us enemies. Our allegiance is no longer to the Decepticon cause. Those who wear that symbol are our enemies." Darkstar dared to take a step closer, motioning to the other femme's chest. "To become one of us, you will be required to remove your-"

Blitzangel backed up, one hand over the insignia on her chest.

Darkstar paused in her advance and lowered her hand. This femme really had no desire to be touched by anyone, the poor thing. She must have been through quite an ordeal with the Decepticons and everything they had forced upon her.

"We did not bring you here to harm you, Blitzangel. We are trying to help you. You are one of us, a female Decepticon. We want you to live here and be a part of us. We are all sisters here."

Blitzangel regarded her without betraying her thoughts. "Where am I, exactly?"

"We are deep within Cybertron. Even deeper than the Female Autobots dare to go. This is our domain. We are safer down here. It is very difficult for any Decepticon mechs to find us."

Blitzangel's optic band flickered, but she did nothing else.

"Come," Darkstar invited. "You are not our prisoner. Please let me show you who we are and how we live. No one will hurt you down here, I promise you."

She could feel the purple femme silently consider her options. Then Blitzangel stepped forward in silent acceptance of the invitation. Darkstar smiled. This was going to work out.

* * *

Darkstar was tall for a femme, dark blue and black in color. She had the build of a seeker. It gave her both strength and height. She had two long wings folded behind her back like a cape, somewhat similar to Blitzangel's own design. Blitzangel really appreciated the Decepticon femme's soft tone and her patience. In truth, she was lost and she was scared and she had no idea whether she could trust these underground femmes or not.

Blitzangel's processor was a blank slate. She could feel everything was in there somewhere - thoughts, memories, emotions - but they were hidden by an invisible curtain. She could feel them hanging there just out of reach, but she seemed to lack the ability to grasp them. She also seemed to lack the determination to try harder. Any time she felt like she should go looking, a feeling of lethargy came over her, taking away the urge.

So as such, she became a creature of the present. She was who she was in the here and now and nothing more. She had general knowledge of what was around her. She knew what Cybertron was, and who the Deceptcions and Autobots were. However, she did not know whether she hated the Decepticons or liked them. What about the Autobots? When she pictured that red insignia in her mind, her aggression levels rose, as she was programmed by the Decepticons. But she did not hold any animosity toward them on a personal level. Her emotional reaction was completely neutral. She could not bring herself to form an opinion of either no matter how hard she tried.

For the Female Decepticons, or Deceptifemmes as they sometimes called themselves, it was a different story. Blitzangel had had no prior knowledge of their existence. She did not know who they were or why they wanted her. The mere lack of information made her wary. The fact that they wanted to get back into her circuits to "fix" her did not help her trust them. Blitzangel was severely lacking in opinions on many subjects, but she knew for a fact she didn't want anyone touching her. She didn't know why, but the thought made her skin crawl and she was going to stick with that instinct.

But Blitzangel decided she liked Darkstar thus far. The taller femme was calm and neutral, even while showing her around her new surroundings. It made Blitzangel feel like she wasn't being forced to accept anything, despite the fact that she was sure they both knew she was very limited on options at this point.

Darkstar showed her the main areas of the Female Decepticon stronghold. Most of it was composed of small tunnels and tiny rooms. The largest areas were reserved for community use such as training or recreation. There was one massive cavern area, the only location with high ceilings. This held the personal bunkers. It looked like a metal hive with levels of doors stacked upon each other.

As the tour continued, the two femmes passed a few other female Cybertronians, none of whom carried the Decepticon symbol. All were painted in dull colors. They seemed ragtag and torn, but worked dutifully under the very dim light the stronghold provided.

Blitzangel was shown a small bunker dedicated to the storage of energy. It had a very sad collection inside.

"Every day, a team is sent out to search for energy sources," Darkstar explained. "There are no exceptions to this. Everyone must take their turn for duty, even myself. When you are feeling better, this will be one of your first responsibilities. Energon is very rare to find down here, we have to search for it constantly. We don't have much, but we are happy to share with anyone who is willing to work."

Blitzangel nodded and followed Darkstar out.

"There doesn't seem to be much security," Blitzangel commented. "There are so few of you. Aren't you afraid of being attacked?"

"There is always that fear," Darkstar admitted. "The male Decepticons greatly outnumber us. But they also are unaware of our existence. If that ever changes, we will stick to the smaller tunnels where the larger Decepticons cannot go. We also know how to navigate this area far better than anyone from the surface does. Besides, we are not entirely without sentinels."

She knocked on a pipe and part of the tunnel folded open. Two lithe femmes stepped out, armed. They were each black and white, mirror images of each other.

"Blitzangel, these are the twins, Dice and Domino," Darkstar said. "They're some of the best tunnelers we have. They're well equipped to get through even the most rusted and dilapidated areas when searching for energy. They're quite good at sentinel duty as well. They take it upon themselves to know every single tunnel in the area, inside and out." She sounded very proud of them.

"If you need to get anywhere," Dice nodded.

"We can show you the way," Domino finished for her. "We know-"

"Every nook and cranny," Dice continued. "Every hole."

"Every trap door," said Domino. "No one goes through these tunnels faster. No one-"

"Can navigate them better than us," Dice finished. "If so much as a turbo rat gets through here, we know about it."

"Not that there is much that makes it down this far," Darkstar said. "Many would get lost before even finding us. These tunnels, this depth, is our safety." She nodded to the twins. "Thank you. Resume your patrol."

The twins saluted and disappeared back into their hideaway, pulling the secret hatch shut behind them. Blitzangel stared after them, a look of intrigue on her face.  
"Have you not seen twins before?" Darkstar wondered.

Blitzangel searched her data files. The non-emotional part of her memory banks systematically pulled up possible matches: the Autobots Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, though they were as different as night and day. Then there were the Decepticons Rumble and Frenzy, close to molded clones of each other.

"I have seen a few," Blitzangel said. "Though none that finish each others' sentences like that. And so identically alike. I think I will have trouble telling them apart."

"Yes," Darkstar nodded. "It is quite difficult to differentiate between the two. Very few twin sets are as close as they are. Even as rare as twins are, they are spark twins. Very rare indeed."

"I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the different types," Blitzangel admitted.

"I see," Darkstar nodded as they walked. "Well, as you know, most twins occur when they are built and sparked at the same time. They have one creator who intended the set to stay together. Therefore, he or she builds both bodies before turning to Vector Sigma to give them the spark of life. This is the traditional type of twin. Two sparks, but sparked at the same time.

"However, every once in a while, there is a spark that breaks into two pieces when it is entering the new body. That anomaly happened when Dice and Domino were sparked. Their creator was only expecting one spark, but was given two. So she had to quickly build another body to house the second. Usually, it's easy to merely build a second, identical body than designing a whole new one. So that is how Dice and Domino came to be. They are alike not just in appearance, but in signature as well, sharing one spark."

Blitzangel was quiet for a while as she walked. "I have not seen any female Cybertronians before now." She admitted softly.

Darkstar paused, surprised. "None at all? Ever?"

"Not that I can recall." Blitzangel suddenly looked troubled. She reached up and rubbed at her optic band, as if unused to having it there. "Maybe I just can't remember."

"Perhaps we can help return your memories to you," Darkstar offered.

"Perhaps," Blitzangel repeated, though didn't seem to amenable to the idea yet. She wrapped her arms around herself in a self-conscious gesture. She was still a very unsure femme.

Darkstar understood what it was like to be unsure. She could wait it out. "Come, I have more to show you."

They wandered through another area where Blitzangel noticed a few female Decepticons hauling extremely thick sheets of metal, all moving toward the same destination.

"Is that a construction project?" Blitzangel asked as she nodded in their direction. "Those look like very thick walls. I thought you said you were not in need of heavy security."

Darkstar paused and looked in their direction. She stiffened for a moment before going back to her neutral stance. "That is not a project you need concern yourself with. It is nothing important. But there is someone who would like to meet you. Come."

Blitzangel obediently followed, but paused when they passed a series of tunnels diving down to even deeper parts of the planet. Something about them made her stop. It made the protrusions on her helm and her wing tips twitch. It was as if some soundless voice, some invisible entity were down there, trying to get her attention. She felt something was aware of her.

"Blitzangel?" Darkstar wondered, breaking the smaller femme out of her trance. "Is anything wrong?"

The purple femme stiffened. "Um, no. I thought... I thought there was something there. Or maybe I heard something."

Darkstar approached the tunnels, her early warning systems on high. She didn't pick up anything.

"Maybe I'm a little jumpy." Blitzangel shrugged in apology. "I'm not used to being down here."

"It's quite alright," Darkstar nodded. "This way."

She led the way to another cluster of small rooms. One in particular was outfitted the same as the med bay Blitzangel had been in when she was brought online.

"We have several repair stations all around the stronghold," Darkstar explained. "We like to keep the rooms small. Smaller rooms and tunnels keep out larger mechs and weapons."

She let Blitzangel enter first, the purple femme having no idea who would want to see her. Who even knew about her down here? Upon walking through the small door, the first individual she saw was Catscratch. That did not make Blitzangel happy. Since her first waking moment with the Decepticon femme, Blitzangel was very uncomfortable in her presence.

Catscratch had a look unique to her. She was colored in browns and burnt reds. Her stance always seemed a bit crouched, as if she would strike at any time. Her knee joints always bent out a bit too far, giving her more of an animal look. Some kind of optical screen was built into her flat face wrapping around the sides, instead of the normal visor look.

Her chest was broad and she had an all around heavy look. Her alt mode, if Blitzangel had to guess, would look something like a tank or a tunneler. Catscratch had a string of heavy treads hanging off each square shoulder, draping down almost to the floor. The treads were spiked, no doubt giving the Deceptifemme's vehicle mode optimum traction when driving through the tunnels. Every once in a while, the tendrils would twitch with Catscratch's moods as if they were alive.

It wasn't her physical appearance that unnerved Blitzangel. She could not judge any of these lifeforms by the way they looked. It was more how Catscratch looked at her. Her gaze was like that of a predator eying prey. Blitzangel already knew the twitchy Deceptifemme wanted to get her fingers into her systems, but Blitzangel was extremely keen not to have that happen any time soon. She really wanted to be as far away from Catscratch as she could.

"Blitzangel."

It was a different voice that called to her. It was then she noticed there was a body laying on the examining table: the Decepticon Ransack, or what remained of him. Much of his outer armor, especially around the chest and shoulders, had been removed, leaving what looked to be more of a base skeletal structure underneath. Catscratch hunched over him, poking a small pen-like tool into his neck.

"I am happy to see you up and around," Ransack said pleasantly. He was smiling wide and easy, an expression he never dared put on his face while at Darkmount. It had been an act the entire time.

Blitzangel meekly came forward as she was beckoned. "Are you injured badly?" she asked.

"Not at all," the Decepticon answered lightly. "In fact, we're just working on-" Catscratch sent an electrical shock into Ransack's neck and his voice suddenly rose in pitch to a feminine tone. "-my new upgrade."

Blitzangel stepped back in surprise as Ransack sat up on the table, rubbing her neck.

"You're a femme," Blitzangel said in surprise.

"Sure am." Ransack smiled, though her face still looked male. "I've been infiltrating the Decepticons for a while now. It took a long time to work my way up in the ranks, a real long time. I can't say I'm disappointed to lose that position as Shockwave's lieutenant, but-" She patted Blitzangel on the head. "To get one of our own out of the clutches of those slagging males, it was worth it." Ransack had a laziness to her speech that she had refused to let show while under Shockwave's command.

Before Blitzangel could respond, Ransack turned to the other femme attending to her. "Hey 'Scratch, can you get this hunk 'a metal off me?" She knocked on her chest plate. "I've worn it long enough, ya know?"

"I'm getting to it," Catscratch grouched as she walked around the table. The rust colored femme traced her fingers around the chest armor until she found the latches and the armor clicked free.

Ransack squirmed, trying to shrug it off.

"Hold on," Catscratch insisted. "I have to disconnect it from your spark chamber or you're going to damage it. She slipped her fingers inside to disconnect some wiring and then the whole contraption fell loose.

Ransack sighed as she was freed from the weight. Her spark chamber was left half open as the apparatus was pulled out. Once the chest armor was removed, she instantly began giving off a female spark signature instead of that of a male.

"Oh, that feels sooo much better," Ransack purred as she rubbed her chest. "That slaggin' contraption made my spark feel like it was suffocating."

"It has to, to hide that femme signature," Catscratch shot back.

Blitzangel stared at the exposed spark. She had seen very few in her lifetime. The ones she had seen recently were broken, bleeding, spilling out onto the floor as their bodies died... she quickly pulled herself out of that thought and looked away when Ransack glanced at her.

"It's alright," Ransack said. "No need to be embarrassed. I've got nothing you haven't seen. We've all got femme sparks here."

Blitzangel's hand traveled up to her chest. Something nagged at the back of her processor telling her to be wary.

"I hear they gave you something like that," Ransack continued. "It's hiding your spark signature right now. And you can crank it up as high as you want to really give the mechs a little extra juice in their systems."

"Perverts," Catscratch spat from the other side of the table. "Primus knows how they even came up with such a thing to alter the spark like that. If you let me, I can remove that for you," she asked hopefully.

Blitzangel's hand remained on her chest as she tried to change the subject. "So the other one, Beatback is really a femme, too?"

"Oh, Beatback's male, spark and all," Ransack said. She picked up a piece of flat metal to use as a mirror as she removed her optic band. Sharp, feminine optics were revealed beneath. "Darkstar found him wandering in space some time ago after she first fled Cybertron. 'Ol Beatback is head over heels for that femme. Will do anything she says, right 'Star?"

Darkstar said nothing from where she was leaning against the doorway.

"Follows her around like a newling turbofox whenever she's not on duty," Ransack continued. "Don't worry, even though he's male, he's one of us. We may hate all mechs down here, but that one's an exception. He's loyal to the cause."

Blitzangel took a moment to process this. "What is our cause?"

Darkstar was next to her, steering her by the shoulders out of the room. "Come, we have one more place to go and all will be explained."

Blitzangel found herself being led deeper into the stronghold, into a section that offered very meager light, just enough to get by without having to use her night vision. Darkstar stopped outside a locked chamber and sent out a signal to someone inside. The door unlocked automatically and they were allowed inside.

Within, one light shone in the middle of the room, lighting a circle of the floor where Darkstar and Blitzangel stood. This room was the widest yet. The hanging light did absolutely nothing to chase away the darkness that squatted in the far corners. In the back of the room was a dais. Blitzangel could see the platform leading up a few steps, but nothing beyond. Standing in the light disallowed her from using her night vision here as well. She could sense someone was hiding there in the shadows, but she would have to wait for them to reveal themselves.

"So, my dear Blitzangel, I hear you have been through quite a bit lately," said a smooth voice from the dais. Two red, oval optics glowed from the darkness. "You are lucky we had agents on the inside or you would still be at the mercy of those... Decepticons." The last word dripped with malice from that pretty voice.

Blitzangel, unsure who she was talking to and what she was supposed to do, gave a quick, polite nod.

"Those two spent many, many years establishing their identity, their ranks," the voice continued. "They were a key part in my grand plan. A plan that has now been set back because of you, femme."

Blitzangel nodded again hastily. "I... thank you. You saved me from their hold on me. I really cannot express the gratitude I feel for this kindness."

In truth, Blitzangel felt nothing. Her emotions were locked away with her memories, her personal thoughts, her hopes, everything that made her who she was. All she had was her common sense to guide her through. It told her she needed to verbally express some kind of gratitude and appear to be loyal. It was what was expected of her.

There was shifting in the darkness. "You will show your gratitude by helping us further our goals against the Decepticons, those who enslaved you." The tone stated that it was not a request.

"I... I will do what I can," Blitzangel fumbled at the bluntness of the order. "Forgive me, but I'm afraid I am still confused over what exactly those goals are. But I would like to help if I am able."

There was a sound of amusement from the shadows. "That's right. You really don't know anything right now, do you?"

Blitzangel lowered her gaze, feeling humbled and stupid.

"Let me explain to you who we are and how we came to this existence." The optics rose as their owner stood and descended the steps toward her. "I am Spectre. I am the leader of what remains of the Female Decepticons."

Blitzangel's optic band flickered in surprise when Spectre stepped into the light. The form was completely alien to her, even for one who had not seen many female Cybertronians. Spectre was slight, lithe and completely silver. She was hardly more than a base skeletal form, lacking the heavy outer armor that defined each Cybertronian's physical appearance. Her body was a blank slate, waiting to be painted and built upon. A protoform. Spectre's face and head were completely smooth. Her large, oval optics were her only real features. A sensuous mouth was painted where a mouth should go, but it served no purpose other than to make her face look whole. When Spectre spoke, the sound came out of slats in her long neck.

"My appearance is not what you expected," she surmised from Blitzangel's response. "I am a living reminder of what the Decepticons did to us. They break and betray everything they touch, even their own." She clenched her small fists. Her body shook in rage to express what her face could not.

"We were loyal to them! We were Decepticons, too! But MEGATRON," Her voice growled out the name with such contempt. "He scoffed at our loyalty and began to exterminate our sisters by the masses. I will not forgive him what he did to—to us!" Her pause made it sound like she was going to say something different, someone specific, but she didn't.

"You, Blitzangel," Spectre put a small hand on the purple femme's shoulder. "You are one of us, a long lost sister who managed to escape the slaughter. You have now found your true place among your kind. If you are truly Decepticon, you belong here with us. With your knowledge of the Decepticons, we will get our revenge on the one who brutally massacred so many of us. Megatron's spark will break in my clutches and the rest of them will scatter and fall against our fury."

Spectre's voice rose with passion and hate again as she gripped Blitzangel's shoulder tightly. "He will pay, they will all pay with their lives. And you will keep yours, my dear Blitzangel. As long as you stay loyal to us, your true faction. With us, I promise you, you will truly be free."

Something inside Blitzangel grew tight. She didn't know much at the moment, but she knew a disguised threat when she saw one. Being a member of the Female Decepticons was a lifelong commitment with death the only way out. She had now been officially abducted into the sisterhood.

Spectre removed her grip and stepped back. "Darkstar has informed me of your hesitance to let any medical personnel examine you or assist in your memory retrieval. I have heard it may be due to the abuse you have suffered under the hands of your captors. This I can understand, but I cannot tolerate it for long. We need information from you. I will give you three days to come to terms with yourself. Then, you WILL submit to a thorough examination and any retrievable processes necessary. You will also have that despicable brand removed from your chest as soon as possible. We are no longer of Megatron's faction down here. We do not wear his filthy symbol."

Blitzangel could do little else but nod under the sheer intensity of Spectre's words. "I will do what I can to help you."

Spectre grabbed her chin, forcing Blitzangel's optic band to look into those red, glowing ovals. "I heard you were fierce on the battlefield, that your aggression levels had been raised by the Decepticons. I see none of that in you. Where is your fire, femme? What do you feel about all this?"

Blitzangel looked at her quietly for a moment. "In truth, I don't feel much right now and I suspect it is a relief. I am sure there is much rage and hatred and pain locked away while my systems are damaged."

Spectre let her go and stepped back. "Perhaps there is. I will allow you respite for three days. Then I'm afraid it will be time to face your demons, as we all must do."  
Blitzangel nodded. "I understand. Thank you."

Spectre turned and walked back to the shadows of her dais. "We Deceptifemmes must look out for each other."

Darkstar, who had been standing by the door, ushered Blitzangel out without a word and she fell into step behind the dark blue Deceptifemme. Blitzangel was contemplating the encounter quietly when Darkstar spoke to her.

"How do you feel about all this, Blitzangel?"

Blitzangel paused to think about it. It was hard to know what she was feeling. In her current state, it was hard to form an opinion or an emotion to anything. "I'm not really sure how to feel, to be honest. Could you tell me, Darkstar, what happened to her? Perhaps I can better understand."

Darkstar walked a little slower through the tunnels. "At the time Megatron decreed us their enemies, Spectre scrambled to organize the females in a last ditch attempt to save our kind. We hit the mechs heavily despite the few numbers we had and we managed to save many femmes from the slaughter by either allowing them to escape into space or hide underground. But for Spectre, it wasn't enough. She wanted Megatron's head. It was... personal to her. But she lost the fight. Megatron beat her and ripped off every piece of outer armor from her frame for what she did and left her to die. I managed to find her just in time before her spark went out.

"She refused to let anyone rebuild her to what she used to be, Blitzangel. That is why she looks the way she does. Hatred and revenge boil in her. Her words are severe, but she really does mean to keep us safe. I hope you will forgive-"

"No," Blitzangel cut her off. "I fully understand. There is nothing to forgive."

Darkstar glanced behind her, throwing Blitzangel a quick, thankful smile.

"So then may I ask," Blitzangel then said, "if the Decepticons are now your enemies, why not join the Autobots? Why try to scratch out a living down here?"

Darkstar instantly shook her head. "The Autobots don't have femmes among their ranks either. Plus, we are still Decepticons, their enemies. After what happened to us, there are those who will never trust a mech again. We can rely on no one but ourselves, only other Decepticon femmes."

"And the mech Beatback, am I right? Though he is not one of us?"

Darkstar looked thoughtful. "He is the exception. There were extenuating circumstances when I found him. But he is unquestionably loyal. The other femmes took their time to get used to him. Though there are some more comfortable with his presence than others. I promise you, there is nothing to fear from him."

Blitzangel grew a little more serious. "I don't fear anyone merely because of their gender. Any one of us is capable of both good and evil."

Darkstar paused so that Blitzangel could walk with her, shoulder to shoulder.  
"So are you saying you don't hate all of the Decepticons, despite what they collectively did to you?" Darkstar asked.

Blitzangel had a blank look on her faceplate. "I... I don't know. I really don't know how I feel about any of them at the moment. Not without my memories."

"What about the Autobots? Would you rather join them in their shining cities? Do you want mechs to take care of you? Do you think you would be better off with them? Is that why you asked about them?"

Blitzangel took a moment to search what feelings she could feel. There was definitely a different stirring inside her at the thought of the Autobots, but she didn't know what it meant. "Decepticons, Autobots, fighting on either side is still fighting. But being down here, I would be helping. At least I hope to help. I think I would prefer that."

Darkstar stopped at a specific door. It was near the hive-like cluster of quarters, but not a part of them. The room inside was bare and tiny with hardly room for little more than a small cot in the corner. "This will be your temporary room until you are fully reprogrammed. I apologize if you are used to something bigger. Consider this your trial period. When your memories are fully repaired we will find you something more suitable."

Blitzangel walked in. There was something strangely nostalgic about the tiny living space. She turned and smiled at Darkstar. "This is fine. Thank you."

Darkstar didn't return the smile. "It is possible you were an Autobot once. From what Beatback has told me about your physical state before you were reformatted, he is almost certain. What do you have to say about that?"

Blitzangel leveled a gaze on her. "I am aware I do not have much choice. I am either one of you or I am dead. However, as of right now, I could accept to be part of a community that looks out for each other. I feel... I feel this is something I could be satisfied with. I cannot say what I used to be, only what I am right now. And right now, I am willing to try to be one of you if given the chance."

This time, a shadow of a smile crept on Darkstar's face. "For a femme who doesn't know anything, you manage to find wisdom. I will leave you to have some time to yourself. And remember, the invitation for the memory retrieval is open any time before the three day deadline. It is certainly more agreeable to do it on your own terms if you can help it."

Blitzangel returned the nod. "Thank you, I will keep that in mind."

Darkstar closed the door behind her, leaving Blitzangel alone. She wondered if the door was locked from the outside to make sure she didn't go anywhere. Not that Blitzangel had anywhere to go, nor did she have the desire to leave. She really didn't care to do much of anything, except to stay alive. Even without memories or emotions, the drive of self preservation remained strong. If these Deceptifemmes kept her safe and did not harm her, she would do what they wanted. She saw nothing wrong with joining their simple, poor lives of energy poverty and small tunnels. As long as they accepted her as one of them.

If they turned on her... Blitzangel may have lost her memories, but she was no fool. She knew her origins were a mystery, even to herself at this point. There was an equal possibility she could be of Autobot origin or Decepticon. It was no secret that she was rebuilt after the Decepticons got their hands on her. Either way, she was Decepticon now. From here on out, no matter what her origins were, she was a Deceptifemme now if she didn't want the entire swarm turning on her. This was her only option. This was who she had to be now.

Blitzangel suddenly felt tired. Strangely tired. Perhaps even a different type of tired than normal Cybertronians felt. She needed to rest. Ignoring the cot, Blitzangel sat herself in the corner and pulled her knees up to her chest. The corner made her feel safer somehow. And maybe, if she could survive these next few days, she could dare to feel safe with them.

* * *

Blitzangel awoke to a knock on her door. For a second, she didn't know what she was doing on the floor or where she was. A second knock followed by a female voice saying her name got her to her feet.

"Who is it?" she called to the door.

"It's the twins," a light voice sang.

Twins. For a moment, another set of faces flashed in her processor. A set of smiles that was so familiar. Then she remembered, she met the twins. Dice and Domino.  
"Open up," a second voice chorused.

Blitzangel scrambled to the door and pawed at it, trying to figure out how to open it in the dim light.

"Hold on, I'm trying to find the stupid- here it is." She pressed the button and the door slid open. "Sorry, I couldn't locate the-"

She was cut off as the twins pushed their way inside. One shut the door behind them while the other put a finger to her lips.

"We're not supposed to be here," she said in a hushed voice. "But we wanted to talk to you. You won't tell anyone we were here, will you, Blitzangel?"

"Um... no. I can keep it our secret." Blitzangel had no idea which one was which. They both looked exactly the same, save for each had an extra square glass over one optic, usually used for greater accuracy in sharp shooting. One had it over her left optic, the other over her right. But it didn't really help in establishing which name went with which femme.

"How long were you held prisoner by the Decepticons?" one of them asked excitedly.

"What's it like over there? I bet the ceilings are so tall and the energon tastes so good," added the other.

"Well, it's uh..."

"You should totally look into getting a tunneling mode like us when you're redesigned," said the first twin. "You're thin, like us. And I hear you're fast. You could navigate those tunnels in no time."

"Redesigned?" Blitzangel wondered.

"Oh yeah," said the second twin. "Your jet mode is useless down here. You'll want to get something more practical. If you want to keep your wings, you can get a hover mode like Darkstar. She can still fly through the tunnels pretty fast. Or we can get you something else."

"Just make sure whenever you get worked on by Catscratch that Darkstar is there to supervise, or you don't know what you will wake up with," the first added seriously.

That only confirmed Blitzangel's opinion of the twitchy femme. "I'll remember that."

One of them grabbed Blitzangel's arm and began fingering it. At first, she thought they were curious about her arm blades.

"Look at these colors." The twin said as she traced the teal diamond on her forearm. "They're so pretty."

"You are so lucky. I bet you can be any color you want when you're a Decepticon," added the second twin. "I can't even remember what my old paint job was."

That was when Blitzangel realized the black and white twins were so monochromatic because neither had a scrap of paint on them. Come to think of it, most of the femmes she had seen working in the tunnels were dull grays and browns. Darkstar, the second in command had her dark blue, but now that Blitzangel recalled, it was worn and chipped at the tips. The second in command must have been doing her best to keep her paint job as nice as possible. Colored paint was definitely a luxury down here.

Blitzangel's heart softened a bit for the twins as they excitedly chatted around her about colors and energon and city lights. It really was a difficult life down here, lacking many small comforts those on the surface took for granted. For a moment, Blitzangel truly wanted to share in their dreams and their hardships and really be one of them.

* * *

Ultra Magnus discovered his leader at the top of Iacon tower, enjoying the open air. One could see quite a bit from the tower roof. It gave a fantastic view of the largest and most industrial part of Autobot territory. It was a fantastic light show of activity. Ultra Magnus sometimes forgot that even in war there were a few beautiful spectacles left on Cybertron.

Optimus Prime, however, was not appreciating the view of the city. His thoughtful gaze was turned towards a darker part of the landscape, unused and forgotten since the more industrious times of the Golden Age. Ultra Magnus stood next to him, curiously following his line of sight to try to figure out what held his leader's attention.

"Not much out in that direction," Ultra Magnus said conversationally. "If I recall, just loading docks and storage areas."

"Yes," Optimus confirmed. "One of the busiest docks this side of the planet. Very busy, very alive in its day."

"Ah. So you... visited there once then?"

A deep chuckle from the Prime. "I used to work there."

Ultra Magnus did not appear to believe him. "You? Well, I suppose you have a great alt mode for hauling cargo, but... Please tell me you at least did it to help pay your way through... military school or something?"

"Let's just say it was a very, very long time ago, Magnus."

"Alright." Though he was curious, Ultra Magnus let it go. He had other business to attend to. "We still need to discuss the transfer. It has to happen sooner or later."

Optimus regretfully turned his body around to face the conversation. "Yes, we do," he admitted.

"I have a transfer roster completed. I submitted it to Prowl for approval. He said it still awaits your signature."

"Yes, I'm aware."

Ultra Magnus waited for further explanation, but it never came. "Is there... any specific reason why you are procrastinating on this?"

Optimus looked back towards the darkness of the former shipping district. "Yes, and no. No solid reason I can explain, but there is reason."

Magnus leaned against the rail next to him, looking sympathetic. "Are you worried about leading the Autobots without me here as a buffer? I know the troops aren't used to you yet. But they still respect you, Prime. They will listen to you if I go to Earth. You have nothing to worry about."

"That isn't the issue." Optimus shook his head. "I have a sense - a feeling - that something is going to happen."

Ultra Magnus sobered. "Like what? You mean the Decepticons?"

Optimus gave a helpless shrug. "I am not certain, but I feel a need to be ready. For what, I have no idea."

Ultra Magnus tried to push back the tiny twinge of frustration growing inside him. Never would he have guessed he would be giving a pep talk to Prime, of all people.

"Well, with the space bridge now in our control, any of the Earth Autobots will just be a short drive away. Not that we would make much of a difference. The brunt of the Autobot forces are still here on Cybertron. I'm confident they can take anything the Decepticons can dish out. Not to mention, I've noticed Prowl and Jazz keeping an extra sharp audio to the ground for Decepticon activity. From what I understand about their abilities, you're in good hands."

Instead of being reassured, Prime vented air as if to sigh and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. "Prowl and Jazz," he murmured in a tired voice. "They are... sometimes I don't know what they are doing anymore." Before Ultra Magnus could ask what he meant, Optimus continued. "What is the status of the Decepticon activity?"

"They're still on high alert," Ultra Magnus responded. "I have Nightbeat's team digging for information, but we still don't have much to go on. Darkmount is locked down tight. The only good thing that has come of this is the Decepticons are now too preoccupied with their own problems to come after us. For now, anyway."

Optimus nodded absently. He looked down at his hands, lost in thought. Ultra Magnus took this opportunity to do what he had meant to for a while now.

"Prime, what happened? I know you have been hiding something from me since I went to Earth. Smokescreen assured me then it wasn't anything big. But now I feel as though the situation has escalated. I'm sorry, I wouldn't ask if I didn't feel it was important."

Optimus was silent for a while, but he didn't try to avoid Magnus' gaze. That wasn't his way. Optimus looked the other Autobot straight in the optics as he considered the options.

"Yes," he finally decided. "If you wish to know. I have quite the story for you, Magnus. I hope you are ready for it."

* * *

Her three day grace period was almost up. Blitzangel was fully aware of this, but she had yet to come to terms with herself or what would be forced upon her in the coming day. It was hard to think about, outside of that gnawing urge at the back of her processor that she was supposed to be keeping something a secret. It seemed to tell her that she would be found out upon examination and that it just may be the end of her. The Female Decepticons were happy to accept her into their numbers as long as she was one of them. If something was found to the contrary, Blitzangel wasn't too sure they wouldn't turn on her, despite the fact that she had been working for them since her arrival.

As soon as she was able to, Blitzangel volunteered for energy gathering. It was better than sitting alone in her tiny room, trying to think about some things and not about others. Working helped clear her foggy, blank processor. It felt good to work; it felt good to be useful. The twins Dice and Domino seemed to enjoy her company as well. That was also good for Blitzangel. If anything negative did come up against her, maybe she would have a few femmes to lobby for her not to be torn into shreds by the masses for being an outsider. Blitzangel had to say that with as little of an opinion her current mental state allowed her, she did like the twins.

They appeared to be the youngest of the Decepticon femmes. They knew well when the situation called for them to be serious, but at the same time, there was a hopefulness to them that that had been worn out of the older femmes from their difficult lifestyle. They always seemed happy and eager to participate in the tedious and sometimes fruitless job of energy gathering. It was a great way for them to blow off their restless energy from pulling a few hours of sentry duty. Both of the twins transformed into thin, triangular vehicles with two wheels. This allowed them to zip along easily in the narrowest of tunnels.

Blitzangel wasn't as lucky. Her jet mode, unfortunately, was not as convenient for traveling underground. She was small enough to fit her wingspan in the larger tunnels, but her powerful engines, even on low, made it difficult to navigate safely. The twins didn't seem to mind. Blitzangel was still fast on her feet, almost as fast as they were. In root mode, the three easily covered a large amount of ground in their search for energy. Dice and Domino were also happy to show her around the area and all the nifty shortcuts they had found where the older femmes may not have cared to go. On their own, there was plenty of time for a detour here and there between finding the odd energy conductor or battery.

As she got to know them, Blitzangel learned the Deceptifemmes were structured similar to an ant colony. They would set up a base and send out their workers to search the surrounding area for energy. When the energy had been depleted, they would pack up and move to another area. The different rooms had felt random with varying sizes and Blitzangel saw femmes working with building materials, but now these made sense. Spectre was the queen ant among them all and tore apart anyone in the colony who didn't belong. She was among the few femmes who Blitzangel had to convince she was one of of them. The time to prove herself was coming up fast. Blitzangel hoped she would be able to do it.

For now, she needed to concentrate on finding energy with her hunting partners, Dice and Domino. The trio of lithe femmes were dropping deeper toward Cybertron's core. All the upper levels in the area had been cleaned out and the lower levels were difficult to get to. Many tunnels had collapsed or simply fallen apart from disrepair. To the twins, it was all a new play land and Blitzangel had to stay sharp just to keep up.

"I found some old energy packs," Blitzangel announced as she came from an area the twins had just searched. She had several fat, rectangular objects in her arms. "I don't know how good they are, but we might be able to get something out of them."

One of the identical twins slid up to her. "Great! Where'd you find them?"

"Back there," Blitzangel nodded to a collection of machinery.

The second twin came up to inspect her find. After over two days of working with them, Blitzangel still had trouble telling which was which.

"You're really good at finding this kind of stuff," the second twin praised.

Blitzangel gave her a sideways smile. "You have to take things apart to find chargers and power packs. They're not just laying around on the floor."

The first twin laughed. "Maybe you were the protoform of a maintenance bot, Blitz."

Blitzangel just shrugged and tossed the packs to the twins for storage.

"Hey femmes, you want to have a contest to see who can gather the most energy?" The first twin then said.

"You always want to make everything a contest, Dice," Domino accused.

Blitzangel tried to keep them straight while she could tell which one was which. "I'm not sure, I still can't find my way back to the stronghold by myself."

"No problem," Dice insisted. "We'll set up the homing beacon right here. Everyone be back in two joors and we'll see who found the most."

"I call this tunnel!" Domino announced, transformed and sped off into the darkness.

"Slag, that was mine," Dice growled as she placed the homing beacon on the ground. It was a small tripod with a blinking green light.

Blitzangel synced her system with the device so she could find it. Dice had already jetted off down a different tunnel. Once left to her own decisions, Blitzangel looked around for a suitable tunnel. Most of the tunnels led off to parts of the same level, but one caught her gaze. It dipped down, heading to deeper elevations, and there was something coming from it, almost calling her. It made the tips of her wings twitch, just like a few days before. What was that sensation? Was it possibly energy? The twins didn't seem to have picked up on it. Maybe she had a higher sensitivity. Maybe she really was a natural at finding energy. Blitzangel just had to see.

Already behind in the contest, the purple femme sprinted into the tunnel of her choice, eager to catch up on the time she had lost. The tunnel dipped only slightly for a few paces before suddenly dropping at a severe angle. Blitzangel took this in stride, easily sliding down the rest of the way when the tunnel suddenly dropped. She slid out of the other end into a narrow corridor. It was pitch black, as most tunnels were down this deep. Her night vision and infrared scanners helped her make her way around the rubble and detect possible sources of energy. Up ahead, she picked up several large pieces of machinery, possibly used for construction, if she had to make a guess.

It looked promising.

Without even thinking to take in her surroundings, Blitzangel jogged toward the machines. Halfway there, her foot hit a part of the floor that was so rusted, it hardly offered any resistance against her weight. She fell through instantly in a shower of rusted chips and powder. The fall was longer than anticipated. Instead of merely hitting the level below, she plunged into a deep chasm that dug even deeper to the core of the planet.

Blitzangel ignited her thrusters to slow her descent. At the same time, her head just happened to hit a pipe that was sticking out. The collision was hard enough to disrupt her motor relays and cause her systems to reset themselves. As her processor tried to recover, Blitzangel's body fell like a rag doll, deeper and deeper into the planet.

She wasn't entirely sure what happened, but the next thing Blitzangel was aware of was coming online on the floor, covered with rust chips and metallic powder. She shook herself as she got unsteadily to her feet. Looking around, something about her surroundings felt different. She was in a tall corridor with ancient guards standing at attention in rows on either side. They lacked faces and sparks: automatic guard drones. Or, they were once in their time. Now they were rusted to their places, optics dark.

Blitzangel looked at them curiously as she wandered down the hall toward light spilling out at the end. She reached the threshold and found herself in a wide room with a high ceiling arching up toward the center. There was light here, much better lighting than what the Female Decepticons could afford. Did somebody live here? What was this place used for? Blitzangel couldn't see anything to answer her questions. Nothing on the walls, no screens or panels. What was this place? How had she gotten there?

Then Blitzangel felt it. That tingling sensation again, only stronger this time. It drew her attention to the center of the room. A platform rose from the floor. How had she not noticed that before? On top of the platform was a golden orb, dull yellow in the light as it sat there. Blitzangel moved cautiously closer to inspect it. She jumped back when the orb began to glow, far more brilliantly than the lights in the room. It rose from its platform as if suspended by an invisible string.

The first thing to hop into Blitzangel's processor was "power." This was a power source. A massive one, like nothing she had ever come across before. How could she be questioned by the other femmes if she returned with something like this for them? It could power the entire stronghold.

She stepped up on the platform, standing right in front of the floating orb. It hovered level with her face as if waiting. Blitzangel stared at it, suddenly mesmerized by the glow. There was something about it, something almost alive. The orb spoke to her, deep in her processor without any words. It held Blitzangel captive like a puppet and she felt her hands rise toward the orb of their own will. She grabbed it with both hands and was suddenly overwhelmed by the amount of power that rushed into her, flooding and overloading her systems.

Blitzangel's vision fritzed and went white before clearing up. When she could see once more, she found herself someplace entirely different than the room with the glowing orb. There were no corridors with ancient guards or miles of dark tunnels or even buildings on the surface. There really wasn't much at all. Was this even still Cybertron?

The space felt small and infinite, solid yet intangible at the same. In the back of her processor, Blitzangel just knew this wasn't normal consciousness. What it was, however, she had no idea. At first, there was just her own existence, solitude. Then she felt another consciousness approach her.

Blitzangel felt him before she could see him. His presence drew near from the mist and the darkness and she could feel age and wisdom as he came closer. An Autobot solidified in front of her. He appeared worn and very aged with optics that had seen more than their fair share of history. Blitzangel's natural impulse was to attack anything with an Autobot symbol, but the calm neutrality of her situation took over. She was going to ask who this Autobot was and what was going on, but Blitzangel seemed robbed of the ability to physically communicate. She could feel it in the very space around her. The purpose of her being here was not to talk, it was to listen.

"I am Alpha Trion," spoke the old Autobot in a slow, steady voice. "I am a first generation of the Great Life-Giver, Vector Sigma."

Blitzangel didn't even have to wonder what he was talking about. Through the mental and spiritual connection, she just knew that glowing orb was Vector Sigma and currently, she was inside it.

"I am one generation removed from the Originals, the first Cybertronians ever built. Those who knew nothing but slavery and fear until the Revolution. I surrendered my spark so that others may know life, just as many more have done before me," Alpha Trion continued.

Surrendering of the spark... Blitzangel wasn't sure what that meant, exactly. Though she couldn't recall where exactly she got the information, she had been under the impression that when one died, his spark went to the Matrix. It was the final destination where everyone hoped to go when their time came. To willingly give up the spark before death to be trapped in Vector Sigma, what did that mean?

Alpha Trion seemed to sense her question. "Vector Sigma distributed life to us all. That life comes from Primus. When a spark is extinguished, it returns to the Matrix, which also comes from Primus. Everything is connected and, for a time, this cycle of life functioned in perfect harmony. We are no longer in harmony, neither Cybertron nor those who live upon it."

That last part was hardly a new revelation. Blitzangel wondered exactly why he was telling her all of this.

"We are slowly dying out," Alpha Trion told her. "Very few sparks have been created within the last few million years. Even our longevity of life will not keep our kind surviving forever without new sparks."

Perhaps not. But Blitzangel still could not see the point of all this. Why did this Autobot need to tell her these things? She didn't even know her own personal history. Surely someone more fitting could make better use of this one-sided conversation.

"Our extinction is coming," old Autobot insisted, his optics wider with urgency. "It is close upon us and it does not intend to allow us to survive."

It? What exactly was "it"? And how did the old Autobot know this?

As soon as Blitzangel wondered this, Alpha Trion was gone, swallowed by the mist and the dark space around them. As she was left alone, Blitzangel saw the mist dissipate around her feet, revealing a solid catwalk beneath her. The empty space in front of her was suddenly swallowed up with mass. The mist scattered, chased out of the way by a hulking body as it formed in front of her. The body was larger than a mountain, sitting on a massive throne with feet far below the catwalk, hidden in the swirling mist. The head of the giant was several stories above her, perched on gargantuan shoulders. Massive hands clenched the armrests of his throne as the details of the giant being began to fully form.

He was Cybertronian, but almost too large to conceive. His frame held the extra armor of his alt mode, shoulder armor so large it could hold buildings, cities. Within those cities, the inhabitants carried on without a notion as to on whose back they were carried. This giant was an entire planet. He was Cybertron.

"I am Primus," the being said. His voice was low and slow, but strangely, carried itself lightly and calm instead of the heavy bellow one would expect from a being of that size. "I am the Great Creator of Life. All things begin with me and I begin all things."

Behind him, a sheer wall of countless screens grew on each side of him. They were stacked around the great being, showing him everything there was to see.

"I create peace and I create divide. I create insight and prejudice. I create of science and art and philosophy and war. I create Autobot and Decepticon alike. They each come from me. They are made of me, my children, and I know of their doings."

Each of the thousands of screens showed a different individual, a different moment in time. All of Cybertron's history, every thought and act and laugh that happened upon it, every cry of pain, every beginning of life and every death that had and would ever happen was shown on those screens.

"I know each of them as I know myself. I know of their hopes and their dreams, their loves and fears. I know of their pasts and futures, countless sparks and I know them all. But I-" Primus shifted on his throne, the tiny, fragile catwalk at his shins could have easily shattered with just the right movement. He lowered his white optics down toward the tiny form gaping at him. "I do not know you."

Blitzangel could hardly work her jaw, let alone come up with some sort of a response. What was she expected to say to that, if she had the ability to reply at all?

"I am but of one half," Primus continued, not expecting a response. "With every beginning there must be an end. Everything created must eventually be destroyed. A constant shadow follows my footsteps to ensure this is so. What I create, he seeks to demolish. The Great Destroyer is coming ever closer to my children, seeking their destruction. I have done all I can to prepare them for this end, but I fear it is not enough."

Prepare them for destruction? How? Blitzangel certainly didn't feel prepared. She didn't even have a clue as to the form this destruction would take.

"In all of existence, I have never created beings such as this," Primus continued. "I granted real life where only artificial life had been before. I could have made them to live in peace until the end, but instead, I created them to be divided. I created them to know well how to fight for the right to live. But my brother knows this as well and he is prepared. I need something he is not expecting. I need something..." Primus once again looked down from his throne at the small figure below. "Unknown."

That word tore the entire scene apart. Before Blitzangel could form a thought in response, everything was gone and she was jerked back to her place of origin. As her world rushed back, she thought she heard another voice, faint and female.

_We are all connected. Everything happens for a reason._

Blitzangel found consciousness to the tune of an audio-splitting sound. She curled up in a ball, hands on the sides of her head to try to block it out. But the horrible noise permeated everything. It felt like it was digging into every fiber of her, disrupting every neural relay and every system. It was a horrible, gut-wrenching feeling created by this sound. It felt like absolute death and agony.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the sound was silenced. Blitzangel flicked on her optic band and looked around. All was quiet and she was in an ordinary tunnel. No massive corridors, no rusted guardians, no glowing orb. There was no hole from which she plummeted and no chasm. She was still on the same level where she had started.

As she got to her feet, two thin figures ran out of the darkness toward her.

"Blitzangel!" called one of the twins. "Where were you? We were supposed to meet back at the beacon almost a joor ago."

"We couldn't locate your signature anywhere," said the second.

Blitzangel rubbed the back of her head. What had just happened to her? It was hard to process all the things she had just seen and heard. Had she dreamed it all up? Was it a symptom of her circuits breaking down from too many meddling fingers? She felt the dent on her helm, the one she had received when she fell.

"I think I hit my head on something. I remember falling, but nothing after that. I think my systems have been trying to reboot this whole time. Maybe my spark shield went up, that's why you couldn't find me."

The twins looked worried.

"But you're okay now, right?"

"We don't have to report this to Darkstar. We promised we would watch out for you."

Blitzangel smiled at them. "It's okay, my systems are fine. It was my fault for being clumsy."

The two looked relieved.

"But we didn't get much energon," one of them sighed. "Darkstar isn't going to be too happy."

Blitzangel stiffened as an idea popped into her processor. Not just an idea, but information poured into her from an unknown source, a new intelligence she had not been aware of.

"I know what we can do. We need to go back to those first tunnels. There's some machinery there I think we can use."

* * *

Several other Decepticon femmes had to be called in for the job. The equipment was not light and it had to be raised by pulleys up several levels. But the others helped without question. They seemed to welcome something new to do and many milled around to watch the brightly-painted femme with her Decepticon insignia working away like one possessed. Anytime Blitzangel asked for a piece of equipment, someone would grab it for her, curious to see the final result.

Even Blitzangel herself wasn't sure what had come over her. It felt as someone else's hands, not her own, were putting the project together. She could feel the wisdom of someone else, someone older, more experienced, telling her how to make it, how everything worked, how the science would be successful. Blitzangel did not fight it and let whatever was using her as a medium do the work.

Slowly, a large, square piece of machinery began to form. Every once in a while, one of the Deceptifemmes would ask Blitzangel what she was building, but she would just shake her head as if trying to hear another voice talk to her. She was working faster than she ever had before. It was strange, Blitzangel was beginning to recall working with her hands before. She used to fix things, she used to make things better before all of this, that was for certain. There just wasn't time to think about anything else right now.

Another mechanical squeal tore through the base, causing Blitzangel to jump before she tried to cover her audios. She had originally thought the first time was the result of her strange spiritual journey, plus the head injury. But the fact that every other femme was cringing from the sound made Blitzangel change her mind. It wasn't something she dreamed up and it was closer and much more painful this time.

* * *

"Ugh! It's doing it again!" Springer complained as all his surveillance gear malfunctioned for the second time in just a few hours. "I thought you asked someone to fix this, Magnus."

Ultra Magnus looked up from what he was doing. "I said I would send someone to look into it."

"Well, looking at it doesn't fix the problem," Springer shot back. "What if this is the Decepticons? What if they're causing this blackout in our systems to sneak into Iacon? Have you thought of that?"

"It's not Decepticons," Ironhide said from the other console as he tracked the signal. "I'm the one who has been looking into it. The source of the problem isn't coming from D-Con Territory. It's coming from the ...Black Zone." He had a hard time disguising the surprise in his voice.

Ultra Magnus stood and peered out of the security tower window, past Iacon, to the horizon far ahead. The Black Zone was aptly named for its lack of any power whatsoever. It covered a large portion of Cybertron, inhabited by neither Autobot nor Decepticon. Neither faction wanted it. Not a single light glowed in that area. From space, it looked like a large, black spot eating up the planet, hence the name.

"We have surveillance satellites constantly over that area," Ultra Magnus said. "There's nothing on the surface that could be causing this."

"Ain't on the surface, boss," Ironhide frowned. "It's come from below."

"Below?" Springer demanded. "What could be so strong to mess up our systems from all the way down there?"

Ironhide continued to frown. He didn't have the answer, but even from high up in their security tower, he could feel the power of that signal making his own circuits shiver.

* * *

Blitzangel slowly relaxed as the second, stronger wave died down. Her hands were a bit shaky and she was getting a few notices of a reboot from some of her systems. It was brutal, almost like an attack. The other Deceptifemmes were recovering as well. Blitzangel felt relieved she had not been the only one to experience it. Maybe her sanity was still somewhat intact.

"What was that?" she asked the nearest femme.

"Fragger's too strong," came the reply. This femme looked older, caked with flaky, greenish yellow paint. She was frowning in the direction Blitzangel had seen construction the last few days. "We built that thing as soundproof and radioproof as we could. There's just shoddy materials down here."

Blitzangel opened her mouth to question. That response didn't tell her anything at all.  
"Blitzangel," Ransack called as she trotted up to her. "I hear you've been quite the busy body lately. Care to show me what you've been working on?"

The Deceptifemme's demeanor and tone were jovial, but Blitzangel was no fool. Someone higher up wanted to know what she thought she was doing. She was still very much on probation.

"I'm actually finished." Blitzangel met the fake, but friendly smile with one of her own.

"I can show you."

After double-checking to make sure everything was properly attached and plugged in, Blitzangel flipped on the device. The bulky machine hummed for a moment or two, warming up. Then, every dim bulb barely coughing out light in the room suddenly flickered to full brightness. Several femmes gasped in surprise. A few had to cover their optics, unused to such light.

"Amazing," Ransack marveled. "You built us a power source."

"Unfortunately, it only powers lights and other normal machinery," Blitzangel said as she tapped it with her fingers. "This type of energy can't be transferred into energon. It's no good for our systems."

"But it will still save quite a bit of energy for the rest of us," Ransack nodded. "How the frack did you do it?"

Blitzangel opened her mouth to try to explain the science. She couldn't. It wasn't her design, it wasn't even her know-how. Somehow, she had tapped into someone else's intelligence for this amazing machine and she could not explain it. Her thoughts were cut short when she sensed a distinctly male signature standing behind her. Blitzangel turned to see the large form of Beatback looming over her. It was the first time Blitzangel had really seen him out and about. Despite the other Decepticon femmes accepting him into their stronghold, they seemed more relaxed when he made himself scarce.

"I heard a rumor around the Decepticon base you were a maintenance bot for the Autobots. When I saw you in battle, I didn't believe it. But maybe a part of it is true," Beatback said.

"Maybe you were an inventor!" one of the twins laughed at her.

"Perhaps the Decepticons did you a favor by reformatting you," the second added with a grin.

Blitzangel looked confused. "What would be wrong with being a maintenance bot? Someone would have to do it. Plus, look at what I was able to do for all of you."

"Well, yeah, it's great and all," said the first twin. "But it's not soldiers' work."

"I see." Blitzangel turned just in time to see one femme at the back at the room that was not enjoying the new, brighter light.

Darkstar was slinking by the wall, a posture that did not seem to fit her. She seemed unphased by the miracle of the new power source and, instead, appeared to have something much heavier weighing her down. She looked very tired and worn and, for a spare moment, full of grief before she disappeared through a doorway.

Beatback noticed it, too. He shared a look with Ransack, his long time partner in conspiracy, before turning to follow where Darkstar had fled.

Blitzangel, while she found it interesting, did not allow Darkstar's state to concern her. She was sure Beatback was a capable mech who could take care of her. At that thought, Blitzangel felt a kind of nostalgia come over her as if she knew what it was like to have someone watch over her like that. Though she could hardly fathom who that would be. Oh well, it was best not to dwell on it.

"I'm a bit tired. I am going to turn in to my quarters for a while if anyone needs to find me," Blitzangel told Ransack.

"You enjoy it," she grinned back. "You've been one busy femme."

Blitzangel nodded and turned to leave quickly before anyone delayed her. So much had happened in such a short time. So much was swirling around in her processor, she needed to get away before whatever had been possessing her demanded she build something else.

After closing the door of her small room, Blitzangel pressed her forehead against it. Something was different than before. Whatever it was she had seen down in the deepest bowels of Cybertron, whether it was real or not, it had changed her somehow. Aside from now possibly sharing an intellect from a long dead Autobot inventor, Blitzangel could feel her own mind starting to piece itself back together. Her memories were still missing, but she could sense them so very close. Her processor knew what it was forgetting and it was constantly running a search program to find it. Deep in her subconscious, it was screaming to her there were very important things she needed to know, things she needed to be aware of for her own survival.

Almost of its own accord, her hand pressed itself against her chest, where her spark was. Where it was supposed to be. A twinge in the back of her processor told her something wasn't right. She turned to a smooth part of her metal wall, allowing her a somewhat clear reflection. Staring at herself, Blitzangel opened her chest cavity, revealing her spark chamber. Then she lowered the chamber door, fully expecting the bright, blue glow of a normal spark. But there was no glow, and there was no spark. The chamber was empty and dark. Blitzangel was filled with horror.

Shit.

The word wasn't even Cybertronian, but it seemed the perfect expletive for the situation and Blitzangel kept repeating it in her head.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.

She wasn't one of them. She wasn't even Cybertronian. What was she? What would the Decepticon femmes do to her if they found this out?

A knock on her door caused Blitzangel to spin around, slamming her chest armor shut and pressing her back against the wall as if pinned by a predator.

"It's Catscratch," called a voice from the other side.

That did not make Blitzangel feel better. It was time for her to submit to Catscratch's physical exam. It was quite certain the Deceptifemme was not going to miss something as major as an empty spark chamber.

Blitzangel answered the door, determined not to look suspicious until she could figure out a plan. Could she delay the exam? Maybe take her chances by telling Darkstar about it first? Maybe the more level headed second-in-command could help Blitzangel out. But Darkstar was also loyal to Spectre. If the leader decided she was an enemy, there would be no swaying the rest of the group. Blitzangel twitched, the springs in her arm bands were tight and ready to bare themselves if she suddenly had to fight her way out and flee from the stronghold.

When Blitzangel opened the door, however, she forgot her escape plan for a moment. The normal dull colored Catscratch was dripping in blue and pink fluids, none of which were her own. A cage hung in her hand. Something within growled pitifully behind the bars.

"I saw your power generator, very nice," Catscratch nodded in greeting. Before Blitzangel could say anything, the other femme continued. "I know we were supposed to have our appointment today, but I've heard you've been quite busy and I... I've had my projects as well, as you can see."

She nodded to her own appearance and that predatory smile was on her face again. Whatever she was working on, she very much enjoyed it.

"I brought you a present."

The cage was lifted into Blitzangel's face and she could clearly see what was inside.

"Ravage," Blitzangel said softly. The sight of the familiar creature snapped certain memories right back to where they were supposed to be.

The metallic feline heaved out a desperate sound deep in his throat, his body shaking and damaged, a foaming gray substance dripping from his mouth.

"I thought I'd leave him for you to finish," grinned, shoving the cage into Blitzangel's arms. "With all those slaggers have put you through, you deserve that much. He was quite a challenge to pry out, though."

"Pry out..." Blitzangel's gaze shot from the cage, back to the soiled femme standing before her.

"Oh yeah," Catscratch grinned. It was wider than before. "No matter how big a mech is, he can still be taken apart. Unfortunately for that one, I don't do it the nice way. After all, where's the fun in that?"

It all flooded back to her. Blitzangel remembered her last conscious moments at Darkmount. Beatback had been leading her through the corridors when Soundwave stopped them. Ransack and Beatback had taken Soundwave, too, when they kidnapped her. Those horrible noises she kept hearing, Blitzangel knew what they were now. They had come from Soundwave as he had been tortured by Catscratch the entire day.

"I'll come get you later, Blitzangel, when I'm done with that piece of scrap,"

Catscratch said, pulling the purple femme out of her thoughts. "Until then, enjoy your present."

Catscratch threw one more nasty smile her way before turning to go. Blitzangel shut the door, happy to have the metal between them. Were all the Deceptifemmes like Catscratch or was she the odd one out?

Either way, Blitzangel didn't want to think about it. It was too much to process all at once. Tiredly, she set the cage on the cot and sat on the floor, back against the wall, watching the animal in the cage. Ravage glared at her, growling. His body shook with exhaustion, with fear, with pain. Fluids dripped around his metal paws. Blitzangel could only imagine what the creature had gone through, what he was expected to continue to go through at her own hands. She had no taste for torture. It left a bitter feeling in the pit of her fuel tanks. Not to mention she held no animosity toward this animal.

In fact, Blitzangel felt bad for Ravage. She didn't want to see him damaged, scared and in pain. They were on the same team once, weren't they? Living together and fighting for the same things? Blitzangel was still having problems recalling everything that

happened to her under the Decepticons' control, though it seemed to be coming back slowly. But memories or no, she knew it wasn't in her to let Ravage continue to suffer.

On full reflex, Blitzangel reached for a hip compartment that automatically opened, revealing a set of small repair tools. Odd. She wasn't aware she had these before. Maybe she was a maintenance bot of some kind after all. Getting to her knees, Blitzangel attempted to inspect the fidgety animal in the cage. Ravage kept his glowing red optics on her as Blitzangel tried to assess the damage from all angles. The surface of the Decepticon feline was scraped and pried at in several areas. One rear haunch was completely exposed and dripping. Ravage seemed to be favoring it and wasn't putting much weight on the wounded limb.

Blitzangel attempted to get at that side first, slowly rotating the cage to the preferred area.

"Easy, easy, Ravage," she said in a calm voice. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm going to repair you, okay? Easy, kitty. Easy."

Ravage kept growling, kept watching, but did not move as Blitzangel slowly rotated his wounded hind leg toward her. For a moment, it seemed as if he would let her work on his injuries until she brought the welder to the wound and it sparked. Ravage jumped up and snarled, swiping at her. Blitzangel lurched out of the way before she lost her hand.

Well that wasn't going to work. How was she supposed to treat an animal that wouldn't let her touch him?

Another knock at her door. Blitzangel prayed it wasn't Catscratch again, back to give her pointers on how to properly dispose of animals. Blitzangel wasn't sure she could take another talk with her so soon.

"Darkstar," Blitzangel said in surprise. Beatback was not with her. "Can I... help you?"

Darkstar looked somewhat the same as Blitzangel had observed earlier. She had that wary, soul-sick look to her that she was just not able to hide at the moment. The taller femme's optics flickered past Blitzangel into her quarters, as if looking for something specific. Her gaze settled on the cage on the cot and Darkstar did her best to look calm.

"So Catscratch gave him to you." Darkstar took the slightest hit of movement as an invitation to come. Blitzangel couldn't very well try to keep her out.

"Yeah, she just showed up at my door with him," Blitzangel replied lamely, unsure what the proper response would be.

Darkstar kept glancing at the cage, optics flickering over the animal inside. "What do you plan to do with him?"

Blitzangel stayed quiet. What was she expected to do with him? Did the Deceptifemmes want her to torture their enemies? If she did not comply would they find her against them?

Darkstar noticed the small welder still in her hand. "Were you trying to repair him?"

Still no response from the purple femme.

"Do you want assistance?" Darkstar continued. "A creature like that, it would be hard to get him to hold still for repairs."

Blitzangel's mouth fell open slightly. Maybe there was still compassion in this small troupe of hardened femmes. Maybe she wasn't so different from some of them.

Before being invited, Darkstar sat down on the cot, back straight and long legs folded under her in perfect grace. She didn't even hesitate about opening the cage.

Blitzangel prepared herself for the robotic cat to spring out and start tearing up the room.

At first, Ravage huddled in the corner of his tiny prison, growling and snarling.

"Come on, Ravage, it's okay," Darkstar called in a soothing voice. "I'm not going to hurt you." She put her hand near the cage door to allow him to sniff it. The cat's slowly died down and he slunk out, crawling on his belly.

"That's a good boy. You know me," Darkstar soothed.

Ravage slunk out timidly and crawled right into the blue femme's lap, hiding his face in the crook of her arm. Darkstar stroked him a few times until he was settled and then she put her arms around him, holding Ravage in place.

"Okay, I've got him." She nodded to Blitzangel.

Blitzangel approached the feline again, welder in hand. She gingerly attempted to repair the damage. Ravage jerked and squirmed from the pain, but Darkstar held him tight, whispering soothing words as she did so. After a while, Ravage settled down as his wounds improved and soon he was resting blissfully in Darkstar's arms. A small rumbling sound came from his chest while she stroked him. Blitzangel continued until she was satisfied with the work and then put her tools away.

For a while, the two sat in silence, Darkstar on the cot with Ravage in her arms and Blitzangel on her knees on the floor, watching them.

"He knows you," Blitzangel said simply, watching Ravage rest.

"There was once a time when all Decepticons worked together," Darkstar said quietly. "Even though it was so long ago, he remembers. But he also knows he does not belong here." She stroked the robotic cat for awhile longer before looking up at the purple femme.

"If you wanted to live here as one of us, you would be welcome, Blitzangel. I promise you that. If that is what you truly want." Darkstar gently put Ravage down to rest on the cot. "But it is up to you. One needs to follow one's true nature, wherever it leads them. And you are very kind, Blitzangel. Perhaps too kind to be down here."

"Perhaps you as well," Blitzangel said softly as Darkstar stood.

Darkstar paused at the door, not turning to face her. "No, I made my choice a long time ago. I am what I am and I belong down here. You still have a decision to make."

Before Blitzangel could respond, Darkstar was out the door, gone. The purple femme was left alone in her room with the napping feline and her thoughts. Blitzangel made herself comfortable on the floor, leaning against the wall to think. She picked apart her processor as best she could, trying to remember who she was and what exactly she should be doing. Before the whole strange incident that morning, she would have been happy to live down here forever as a member of a group that accepted her, no matter who they were. But now, that blank slate she used to be was slowly being filled again.

The memories were trickling back so slowly, but Blitzangel felt more defined as herself now. She knew living here like this with so much hate was not the type of femme she was.

Then, of course, there was her lack of a spark. Blitzangel still didn't have an answer as to why that was, but she was extremely uncomfortable with Catscratch discovering her secret. Plus, there was the idea of the Deceptifemme digging into her memories when herself wasn't even sure what would be found. It didn't seem like a safe idea.

Ravage perked up from the cot, suddenly fully online from his short recharge. His sharp audios flickered as he got to his feet, his body language agitated. Blitzangel stayed still, hoping he wouldn't attack her. Ravage paid her no mind. He jumped to the door, pacing anxiously. The sound came again. That horrible sound that would rip through the stronghold and tear into her own systems. Blitzangel moved to cover her like before, but then she stayed them to listen. The noise wasn't nearly as strong as the other times and it was fading. She could hear it in the tone. The source of the signal, Soundwave, was dying.

Ravage made a desperate sound as he scratched at the door. He knew it, too. Time was short.

"Ravage, no," Blitzangel barked at him. "Leave it alone."

She tried to block the door with her body to get him away, but the feline just skirted around her and went back to the door. He pawed at it again and looked back at her with a catish whine. Blitzangel returned the look helplessly.

"I-I can't. There's nothing I can do. There's nothing you can do. Do you understand?"

Ravage returned his attention to the door, digging at it, butting it with his shoulder trying to get it to open. Blitzangel turned her back to him; she couldn't bear to see it. There was nothing she could do. She kept telling herself that over and over as she paced around the tiny room. Blitzangel didn't have the power to stop it; she didn't have the power to do anything. She was trapped, she had no choice at all. It was out of her hands.

Then why did she feel so horrible about it? Why did she feel like she would hate herself forever if she didn't leave that room, knowing full well if she did, she would never be welcome back among the Deceptifemmes again?

Ravage continued to claw fruitlessly at the heavy door when Blitzangel slammed her foot in front of him, blocking his way.

"Ravage, transform." Blitzangel's voice was shaking, without much authority at all.  
Despite the tone, Ravage looked at her and did exactly what he was asked. He lept into the air, transforming into tape mode. Blitzangel caught him and fastened him behind the wings on her back. Fuel pump racing, Blitzangel poked her head out of her quarters. When she saw no one around, she quickly stole through the dark corridors. Unfortunately, some were not as dark thanks to her own ingenuity, but she could still manage. She was built for non-detection and she used those skills now to slink around the stronghold. The construction site was Blitzangel's destination. She never really paid much notice to it before when the other Deceptifemmes were bustling about back and forth to build the heavily armored room. Blitzangel just assumed they would tell her what it was in due time. Now she knew what it was used for and Blitzangel was going to have to figure out how to be let inside.

She paused at the entrance, nervous and scared. If she did this, there was no turning back. It was also quite possible she would never make it out of this alive. Was it really worth her own life?

Blitzangel knocked on the door. After a few moments, it opened and Catscratch poked her head out, still splattered with the energon of the enemy. Blitzangel nodded formally to her, standing up straight.

"I wish to speak with the Decepticon before his spark is extinguished... alone."

Catscratch looked at her, a bit suspicious. "Why?"

Blitzangel pressed her lips into a thin line. "He needs to answer for what he did- what they all did to me." At those words, an unsuspected emotion welled up in her. She really was angry at them. They had done things to her and she was not faking this.

The real and sudden raw emotion Blitzangel was unable to hide won Catscratch over. "Very well, if that is what you want. He can't hurt you now so I will give you some time." As she walked out, Catscratch turned with a sneer. The tendrils hanging from her arms were twitching. "I left my tools out. Feel free to use them. I will be back momentarily."

The idea of inflicting torture on anyone gave Blitzangel a sick reaction in her fuel tank, but she nodded silently and went inside, closing the door behind her. At the close proximity of his master, Ravage couldn't hold himself anymore and transformed, sniffing around the body. There was a large puddle of energon gathered around the table where Soundwave lay. Ravage was stepping in it, leaving paw prints all over. Blitzangel needed more time to react.

The scene in front of her was sickening. Soundwave's body was a gaping mass of carnage. Systems, wires, and tubes had been yanked, torn, burned, or cut out one by one. They were all over the table and all over the floor, dripping energon everywhere. The chest cavity was pried forcefully open, a mess of twisted metal where Ravage's tape mode had been forced out. In the lower abdomen, Soundwave's spark was bared to the world, the protective chamber forced open. It flickered weakly, with several shards of metal, most likely from the body itself, shoved into it. The only part intact was Soundwave's head with pain sensors functional so he was fully aware of everything that was being done to him.

Blitzangel had to take a moment to fight the urge to purge her tanks. But she didn't have much time. She steeled herself to approach the macabre scene and forced her optic band to take in the entirety of the damage. Just as she had hoped, Blitzangel felt that extra intelligence inside her take over. It was as if she had downloaded a program into her own processor that knew how to build or repair anything. More than that, she felt guided by the hand of one who was familiar with the act of creation. Who maybe even knew the very secrets of life itself.

Her hands were getting to work before Blitzangel even knew what they were doing. They grabbed at the entrails with hardly a second's hesitation and began putting them all back in. Damaged or not, components were being shoved back in at lightning speed. Bent or broken, they were pushed in place and forced to work long enough to make it out of there. Energon leaks were plugged and shards removed from the damaged spark.

_Give it time to heal,_ Blitzangel heard in her head. _The spark is stronger than you think._

Soundwave's radio systems had all been torn out as well as his vocalizer. It had been an attempt to prevent him from making noise during the torture. Just like the thick metal walls, they were useless against Soundwave's full arsenal of communication abilities. Perhaps even Megatron himself was not aware of what Soundwave was fully capable of. Blitzangel didn't bother to put them back in. She just needed him operational enough to get them out of there.

Ravage suddenly growled at the door, agitated. Someone was coming. Blitzangel was out of time. She shoved the last components into the body and Soundwave's optics lit to full power. He shifted slightly on the table, but it was obvious the movements were painful. He was still sporting an extreme amount of damage. But it would have to be enough, there was no other choice.

Blitzangel was helping the larger Decepticon sit up when the door opened. Catscratch walked in and froze at the scene before her.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

Blitzangel stayed silent as she assisted Soundwave in swinging his legs over the side of the table. The mech could hardly sit up after what he had been through.

"What are you doing?" Catscratch screeched again, her voice rising an octave in disbelief and anger.

She stepped fully into the room and Ravage pounced on her back, digging his fangs into her neck. Blitzangel was quick to shut the soundproof door as Catscratch shrieked and tried to get the animal off of her. Just as she managed to grab Ravage and throw him to the ground, Blitzangel kicked her in the midsection, sending Catscratch flying into the wall. This Deceptifemme needed to be incapacitated before anyone else noticed something was going on.

Catscratch growled as she crouched by the wall, looking more dangerous now than ever. "You filthy traitor!" she spat. "You side with them? Have they brainwashed you even now? Or was this all a trick just to find us down here? How can you call yourself a femme when you betray your own kind?"

Blitzangel was far more calm. "This isn't right. I can't just let it go. I don't want to kill you."

Catscratch's energon boiled as she snarled. "I do!"

Blitzangel expected a full frontal charge from the raged femme, but Catscratch stayed her ground. Surprisingly, the tendrils coming from her arm came to life. She swung it like a whip and it shot out, crackling with energy towards Blitzangel. The purple femme scrambled to dodge the unexpected assault. She narrowly avoided it slashing her chest, but the tendril grazed her arm. Even that was enough to send a nasty sort of energy into her systems, leaving her entire arm tingling in an unpleasant way.

Catscratch laughed as Blitzangel grabbed the wound. "What? Did you think we were helpless down here? Countless years of living this life has made us stronger, venomous. Just because we are smaller than your beloved mechs doesn't mean we are weaker."

Catscratch sent a second tendril flying for her chest, aiming for the spark chamber, a direct kill. But Blitzangel was ready the second time. The tendril scraped along the far wall as Blitzangel ducked and charged. Arm blades out, she slid around the danger as Catscratch tried to redirect the attack. One slice from Blitzangel and Catscratch was minus her left tendril.

The Deceptifemme snarled and swung around, directing her right tendril toward her opponent. This time, Blitzangel was not fast enough to dodge the backlash. It swiped across her middle, narrowly missing the exposed line of wiring at her waist, but still digging through her armor. Blitzangel spasmed as the venomous energy shot through her body, confusing her relays, making her muscles convulse.

"You like that?" Catscratch gloated as she watched the purple femme twitch on the floor. "It's my own invention."

Blitzangel tried to get up as Catscratch, kicking Ravage out of the way, attacked again. This time, the tendril stabbed straight on, right into her exposed wiring. Blitzangel screamed as another surge shot into her, right into her deepest systems. Catscratch yanked back out with a sneer and Blitzangel's body fell in a twitching heap on the ground, energon leaking from the open wound.

"Even if you made it out of here, which I doubt you will, you're infected now," Catscratch grinned. "It's one of my favorite devices. A poison that enters the system through energy. Right now, it's racing through your systems, corrupting it. It's searching out your spark. The poison is designed to invade the spark, slowly eating it from the inside. It is a very long and painful way to die."

Blitzangel was trying to get to her knees now, trying to move past the pain. She needed to get up. She still had to fight and get out of there. It wasn't just her own life that hung in the balance.

Catscratch grabbed her shoulder and yanked her to her feet.

"How would you like it, traitor? Shall I force you to experience a slow and painful death as your spark rots from the inside out? Or should I put you out of your misery right now? It would certainly be more than you deserve."

Blitzangel shook her head, trying to clear her vision. Her red optic band flickered as she attempted to stand under her own power. Her body wasn't too willing to cooperate at the moment.

"You say... it attacks the spark?" she asked weakly.

"I'm sure you can feel it entering the chamber right now," Catscratch confirmed. "Can you feel it sucking the life out of your spark, you piece of scrap?"

Blitzangel's mouth twitched into a smile. "In my spark? I'm afraid I don't have one."

"What?"

That was all Catscratch managed to get out before Blitzangel charged her blades and, in a blink, the Deceptifemme's head was rendered from her body. The head rolled to the ground, optic screen flickering out while the body still stood there in surprise, gripping Blitzangel's shoulder. The body twitched once and then finally fell to the floor, lifeless. Catscratch wasn't dead. With the neural net severed from the body, neither head nor limbs could communicate with each other, but the spark was still intact and the body in stasis lock. Though it would certainly be a while until she was put back together.

Blitzangel stumbled against the wall, trying to get her balance back. Spark or not, whatever was in her system was still doing a number on her motor skills. She stumbled over to the table, shaking her head, trying to force her body to obey her. Without a spark to infect, the virus was wandering and her automatic defense systems were doing their best to reroute the damage so she could function.

"Come on, we have to go now," Blitzangel said as she took Soundwave's arm. "Or we're both going to die down here."

Even with a poisoned system, Blitzangel still fared better than the Decepticon at the moment. Soundwave was rendered mute and hardly capable of holding himself up. All he could do was look at Blitzangel with that expressionless face and attempt to keep himself from falling over onto the table. Putting his arm around her shoulders, Blitzangel got the much bigger mech to his feet. Slowly, the two made their way to the door, both bodies wounded and dripping energon.

Ravage was the first out the door, systems alert to see if it was safe. Luckily, the room was built away from the main congregation because of the purpose it served. No one else was around. After the outbursts, the other Deceptifemmes wanted to be as far away from it as possible while Catscratch was working. Ravage led the way, searching out uninhabited tunnels as the three of them slowly dragged themselves further from the stronghold.

Blitzangel tried to keep her focus despite her pain. Soundwave was in bad shape, barely hanging on by a thread. He needed medical attention or his spark was going to go out. He was barely even able to move his legs to walk. Blitzangel was taking the brunt of the larger mech's weight and it was stressing her own wounds. Every time she strained, fresh energon would run out of the gash in her side and down her leg. If anyone tried to track them, they would have no problem with the blatant trail of energon they were leaving behind. Blitzangel was praying to whatever powers may be listening that they didn't run into the twins or any other sentries on their way.

Her prayers seemed to go ignored when red optics appeared in the darkness ahead of them. Blitzangel tensed, trying to prepare her body for another fight, but Ravage didn't even growl. In fact, he trotted up to the figure and rubbed himself against her leg as the Deceptifemme stepped into view.

"Darkstar," Blitzangel said quietly. "I'm sorry, but this is my choice. You can either let us go or-"

Darkstar walked up to them, to the other side of Soundwave, and put his free arm around her shoulders. She was quite a bit taller than Blitzangel, a perfect height to take on most of Soundwave's weight.

"I can get you to the surface, but we most move quickly," was all Darkstar said as she led the way.

With both femmes carrying Soundwave's weight, they made better time, but they were still far below the surface with a long way to go. Blitzangel tried to keep her focus on just moving her body forward. The poison, virus, or whatever it was that Catscratch had infected her with was still attempting to disrupt her systems. It took all her concentration just to keep her limbs moving correctly. It was also a good distraction from the pain of her leaking injury.

"They've sounded the alarm," Darkstar said. "It won't be long until they're following us."

Blitzangel clenched her jaw and forced herself to move faster through the tunnels. After a few minutes, they came upon a dead end. Blitzangel thought she was going to pass out right there. There was no way she could manage to backtrack and try another tunnel. The Deceptifemmes were going to find her.  
"We go up," Darkstar announced.

Above them was a shaft that led levels and levels up into the darkness. Darkstar ignited the thrusters on her feet and Blitzangel did as well. Though the purple femme was smaller, her jet engines were more powerful. She easily carried more than her fair share of the weight. Darkstar called to Ravage to jump on her shoulder and the four of them flew up through the shaft.

Blitzangel could feel the pressure of those layers and layers lessen as they jetted up toward the surface. It felt almost like a relief. As if she had been underwater for a very long time. Was that her alt mode speaking to her, craving open sky?

The shaft took them all the way to the very top, one tunnel away from the surface. Blitzangel dropped her hold on Soundwave the second their feet hit solid ground. She needed a break. She collapsed against the wall, her engines overheated from the exertion and warning signs popping up all over her neural net from the damage she had received. Blitzangel put a hand to the gaping wound in her abdomen. She could still feel the evil concoction swirling around in her system. It made her want to purge her tanks.

Darkstar, now carrying Soundwave's weight herself, slowly set the wounded mech down to lean against the side of the tunnel. She crouched next to him, looking him over with regret. Blitzangel happened to see, for the shortest moment, Darkstar brush the back of her hand lightly, affectionately, over the face mask of the Decepticon mech. That action both cleared things up a bit and made them somewhat more complicated.

Darkstar then stood and walked over to Blitzangel. "This is as far as I can take you. You must go the rest of the way alone and quickly. Even far up here, it won't slow down my sisters for long."

"You're going back to them?" Blitzangel asked weakly.

Darkstar nodded. "They are my sisters, my faction, my family. It is where I belong."

Blitzangel tried to stand up, but fell back down, grunting with pain. "You care about him," she nodded in Soundwave's direction. "You don't approve of what was done to him, yet you go back?"

Darkstar glanced at Soundwave as well. "I have little control over who my spark attaches to, but I choose my own allegiance. As did you. So you may return back to the Decepticons. It seems that is your wish."

Darkstar knelt next to her as if to quickly tend to her wounds, but Blitzangel kicked her away, frowning.

"I'm not going back to the Decepticons." Blitzangel grunted as she attempted to get to her feet again. "They made me this way, a killing machine. I'm not like them."

Darkstar, a bit surprised with the answer, watched the purple femme get to her feet and stagger towards Soundwave's half conscious body.

"Then where will you go?" Darkstar asked.

Blitzangel staggered towards the Decepticon mech. She grunted as she lifted Soundwave to his feet, both of them leaking new liquids with the movement. She then turned back to look at Darkstar.

"That's hardly your problem, isn't it?"

"Wait," Darkstar called as they turned to go. "I have something I need you to do for me."

Blitzangel turned her head to see Darkstar holding a blaster by the barrel, the grip pointed toward her.

"I need you to shoot me. My sisters think I am chasing you down."

Blitzangel's expression stayed tight. She wasn't about to shoot anyone after all she had witnessed. "You will have to do it yourself."

She was about to turn around when Soundwave suddenly found his last sources of energy. His body came to life and he grabbed the blaster. Without hesitation, he shot Darkstar in the chest, near the shoulder and avoiding her spark. It was a good shot. Enough to incapacitate, but not kill. Darkstar had a thankful look on her face before her smoking body crumpled to the floor and she went into stasis lock.

Soundwave's body lost its power again and the blaster fell from his lifeless hand.

Blitzangel looked at them both before turning toward the mouth of the tunnel. Slowly, she started dragging herself and Soundwave into the open air.

"I'll never understand Decepticons."

* * *

The going was slow with Blitzangel dragging herself and the much heavier Soundwave through the Black Zone. The ground was uneven and rotten with disrepair. Ravage wandered around them, sniffing the ground and on watch for enemies, but he wasn't any help with the brunt of the problem. Blitzangel's joints and systems were at their max, trying to heave herself one foot at a time in her state with Soundwave's weight on top of her. She slid and stumbled and fell several times, the pain getting worse, her reserves plunging lower as more liquids seeped out of her body. A few times, Blitzangel thought about not bothering to get up again, but then Ravage would nudge at her arm and she would somehow make it to her feet once more.

That was how the three of them went for hours. It felt like days. It felt like a lonely nightmare that would never stop. There was just the constant pain and the lifeless body dragging behind her. It was like death all around, no lights, no noise, no movement. For a while, Blitzangel felt sure she would die here.

The roar of jet engines sounded overhead. Blitzangel didn't even have the strength to lift her sight skyward to see what it was. She was on automatic now. One foot in front of the other, one step forward. That was all her damaged body could process. It was all that was keeping her going.

Several large bodies landed in front of her. In the lead was the tall, gray form of Megatron himself. It seemed almost a lifetime ago that Blitzangel had seen him and the Decepticons looming at his heels. They were still quite far away from Darkmount. Soundwave must have been using what little consciousness he had left to send some sort of homing signal. Though with what system, Blitzangel had no idea. The communications specialist was hardly running on the most necessary components as it was.

"Well, well, two of my most trusted soldiers have found their way back to me," Megatron announced. "Very impressive."

He nodded to two nondescript seeker clones at his left. The seekers moved automatically and lifted Soundwave's weight off the smaller femme. Blitzangel's joints hissed as they were finally given a rest.

"And you," Megatron grinned at her. "You have been even better than expected. You risk your well-being to rescue one of my prized officers and return him to me. You have done well."

"Except now she's an absolute mess," Starscream griped as he stepped forward. "Someone will have to carry her back. I doubt she can even transform in this state."

He reached out to further assess the damage. Blitzangel's hand shot out, grabbing his wrist.

"Don't," she said, making Starscream jump. "..touch me."

"She can talk," Thundercracker exclaimed, almost looking relieved. Beside him, Skywarp just looked almost as horrified as Starscream did.

"How did you-" Starscream wondered.

"I'm done," she said sharply, cutting him off. "I'm not going back with you."

Megatron growled at her, pushing Starscream out of the way to loom over the small, wounded femme. "Need I remind you that you are mine? You do not leave my service unless I release you myself or you have given your life to the Decepticon cause."

"I have given it," Blitzangel insisted. Her body twitched with an involuntary spasm as her optic band flickered. "I risked my life for one of your soldiers and now I'm infected with the virus that will kill me. There is nothing more I can do for you."

Megatron narrowed his optics at her, trying to find a way to call her bluff.

Blitzangel's body heaved with a coughing noise and energon began to dribble down the side of her mouth. Her internal systems were failing.

"I have been a warrior for you," she managed to rasp out. "Allow me a warrior's death. I don't want to die on a cold laboratory table. Let me choose where my body falls."

"Megatron," Starscream cut in. "This is ridiculous. Even if her processor is about to shut down, let me take it back to my lab to study-"

Megatron raised his hand to silence his flight commander. He looked to Starscream and then to the body of Soundwave, still supported by the two seekers.

"This," he decided. "Is a fair trade. You may have your warrior's death for our cause."

Blitzangel didn't even nod in acknowledgment as she turned to go.

"Wait!" Thundercracker called out. "Megatron, there has to be something else we can do. We haven't even attempted to repair her. Maybe there's still a chance."

Megatron looked at the blue seeker. "When your time comes, Thundercracker, would you also like the same consideration? Shall I haul your body back to the lab after you have fallen in battle and have Shockwave attempt to force life back into your sparkless husk?"

Thundercracker shut his mouth. He most certainly did not want that. It had already happened to him once before. To have it done again ... he might end up like the seeker clones the next time.

"Besides," Megatron added, turning his back to the wounded femme trudging off into the distance. "Her life was artificial. Shockwave could probably build you an new one easier than fixing that. Decepticons, let's return to base." Megatron looked at the two seekers holding Soundwave's body. "Get him to the medical bay as soon as possible. I want him functioning enough within the next cycle to be able to report what the slag happened to him."

The seeker clones nodded and took off into the air.

"The rest of you, back to Darkmount. There is much to do."

Starscream was the first one into the air, followed by Megatron himself. Thundercracker lingered behind, optics turned regretfully to the form slowly making her way into the dead darkness of the Black Zone.

Skywarp put a hand on his shoulder.

"Come on, 'Cracker. All dolls eventually break. We'll find you another one."  
Ravage was rubbing his head against the leg of the black and purple seeker, letting him know he didn't want to be left behind. Skywarp picked up Ravage as he transformed, putting the tape in his cockpit as he took off into the air. After one last glance, Thundercracker followed him and the Decepticons all flew back towards Darkmount.

Blitzangel could still hear the rumble of their engines as they departed, but she did not heed them or look back. For the first time she could recall, she felt free. Her optic band wouldn't stop flickering, it was hard to get her legs to move how she wanted and she was constantly full of pain, but she was free. There were no harsh optics or strange hands to grab at her. No tools and instruments to poke and prod her while she was offline. That thought alone was liberating. Blitzangel almost smiled to herself as she continued to slowly drag her bleeding, malfunctioning body along the wasteland of the Black Zone.

If this was how she was going to die, she would be satisfied with that.

The further she walked, the worse her condition grew. It wasn't as before when she had to hold out until she had finally returned Soundwave to a safe place. Blitzangel didn't have anyone to hold out for now. She was just waiting until the last of her reserves ran out.

Through the haze of her pain, Blitzangel noticed a collection of bright lights, far into the horizon. A grand city, Iacon. She found herself stumbling in that direction without even thinking about it. The city was beautiful, brilliant. But no matter how far she walked, the lights still seemed so far away. Like a horrible, wonderful mirage. It was like trying to get to heaven and she just wasn't there yet. She just wasn't dead enough yet.

Death, however, was closing in and she could feel it. Not just the liquids still dripping from her wounds, but Blitzangel could feel her systems slowly shutting down one by one. Her muscles twitched, her joints were locking and there was little else she was aware of but the pain.

She was stumbling more and more now, each time wondering if that would be the last time she would make it to her feet. Yet, her body pressed on. Miles and miles she dragged herself, her consciousness drifting farther and farther from reality. The Black Zone disappeared in her mind and sometimes Blitzangel felt she was back in those dark, suffocating tunnels far underground. Sometimes she thought she was trudging through swirling mist or the black, thickness of space. Other times, she was somewhere else, somewhere so alien from this planet, yet so familiar to her. Someplace where gentle breezes blew and the grass grew high. Someplace far away where inside of a mountain was cozy and the voices were so familiar. Someplace her spirit was ready to visit as her body finally gave out.

Blitzangel crashed to the ground and this time, she did not get up. Her muscles no longer obeyed her. Her wounds had taken their full toll, the last of her systems were shutting down. As her optic band flickered in a last ditch attempt to stay alight, Blitzangel turned her gaze to the sky. She saw the haze of pinks and grays of the atmosphere, with the darkness of space holding up the stars. It was pretty, but it wasn't the sky she remembered. Where was her blue sky?

Her optic band gave one last sputter of life and went out. The body fell lifeless, silent, as dead and dark as the Black Zone around her. Far in the distance, the lights of Iacon continued to glitter.


	5. Chapter 5: No Safe Haven

Rising Generations

Chapter Five: No Safe Haven

The light from the glittering towers of Iacon could be seen for miles around. Their brightness reached far out into darker places, casting shadows on the dilapidated buildings in their wake. Among them trudged a small figure, her dark paint blending in with the shadows. Her red optic band flickered pathetically as it tried to remain online, but her vision was going. Her footsteps were heavy and uneven. Energon from the gaping wounds in her torso ran freely down her legs.

At times the femme would stumble and fall, generously coating the ground in her own fluids. Every time, she would fight to get back on her feet again, muscle cables twitching as if unwilling to cooperate with the rest of her body. The body, as if driven by some unknown force, trudged aimlessly for miles before finally collapsing one last time. There she remained, drained of energy. Her optic band flickered out and all her systems fell dead. Suddenly, this living being was no different than any other lifeless hunk of machinery in the area.

The landscape remained dark and quiet, just as it had been before the body found its final resting place. Then something stirred in the shadows. Something anxious and excited about what just stumbled into this new territory. Something that wouldn't sit still.

"Twilight, stop," Firestar hissed at the smaller femme. "If I have to tell you to park it one more time-"

The little yellow femme wasn't paying attention. The two of them hid among a few dilapidated buildings so as not to be seen. It took all Firestar's patience to rope Twilight in and keep her quiet while they tracked the wounded femme. Even when the stranger fell, Twilight crouched with barely restrained excitement, her little back end twitching like a puppy who couldn't stop wagging her tail.

"She's down, Firestar," Twilight insisted. "I think she fell into stasis. Let's go over there and check-"

Firestar hushed her by palming the yellow Autobot's face none too politely. There was a blaster in her other hand. "Alright, we'll go. But slow and careful. You stay behind me until I know it's safe, you hear me?"

Twilight's large optics shone brightly as she nodded. Firestar pressed her lips together and then carefully crept out of her hiding place, finger on the trigger in case anything should go awry. Slowly, the two Autobot femmes approached the body, on high alert in case it was a trap. Firestar's scanners couldn't pick up a single extra signature in the vicinity. Whomever this strange femme was, she seemed to be alone. Twilight stayed in the orange femme's shadow, also on alert for any movement.

When it appeared there would be no ambush, Firestar clipped her blaster to her hip and nudged the body with her foot. No movement came from the stranger, nor could she pick up any energy signal on her scanner. Whoever this femme was, she was bled dry. Firestar looked at the obvious trail of fluids the stranger left behind. The glowing pink of the energon trail was already starting to fade to brown, indicating the energy was no longer good. What a waste of energon.

"She's hurt real bad," Twilight said, crouching next to the body. As if the massive trail of fluids weren't indication enough. "Definitely in stasis lock."

Firestar turned the body over to inspect the damage. The first thing that caught her optic was the purple symbol on the stranger's chest.

"She's Decepticon. Looks like they branded her. Any Deceptifemme wearing the Decepticon symbol means they're no longer welcome among them. The D-Femmes must have turned on her for some reason."

Twilight looked spark-broken. "Why would they do that to their own kind?"

Firestar shrugged nonchalantly. "Beats me. It's not really my business who they choose to root around in the dark with."

"But we're not going to leave her here, right?" Twilight begged.

Firestar vented air. "No, I suppose not. Though I'm not sure if we've got enough equipment back home to put this femme back together. But I guess we can try."

The female Decepticon wasn't as small as Twilight, but she was smaller than Firestar and surprisingly light for her size. The orange Autobot had no trouble hauling the body over her shoulder and the two carefully made their way back to their hidden base.

* * *

Hot Rod's chattering was grating on Kup's last nerve. The young punk wasn't even chattering at him, which was unusual. Hot Rod had found himself a new mentor to annoy and Kup was a bit irritated by his choice. As if the great Optimus Prime didn't have enough to do. Now he had to deal with Hot Rod's insistent demands for attention. Kup was beginning to think he would have to save the Prime from the young Autobot eventually, but Optimus Prime seemed not to mind Hot Rod's prattle at all. Primus must have blessed the Autobot leader with the patience of a saint when he bestowed the Matrix on him.

But Kup knew what Hot Rod was up to. The young Autobot had seen the great Optimus Prime in action. He was able to fight alongside him and it had been exciting. Never had Hot Rod been that involved in the war; never had he been that excited about the greatness of the Autobot cause. He wanted to feel like that again.

Kup couldn't blame him. Optimus Prime had a way about him that could galvanize even the most empathetic spark into fighting with all its might for such a cause. The Autobot leader was something passionate and new for a young Autobot who had grown uninterested and complacent with the way things had been running. As long as Optimus didn't seem to mind having him around, Kup was satisfied to let Hot Rod be near their leader. Maybe some of that greatness would rub off on him and Hot Rod would straighten up and actually be worth his weight some day.

That may be a while still, however. For right now, Kup needed a little peace and quiet to get his circuits to quit buzzing from all the yammering. Luckily, his shift was over and another Autobot was coming in to take his place. Kup mumbled he was done for the day and shuffled out of the main control room. He stopped for a cylinder of energon before ambling up to his favorite brooding place, the top of Iacon tower.

He had to share that spot with none other than Optimus Prime lately. It seemed even the great Autobot leader needed some quiet time. Especially when certain young punks tended to follow him around. But with Prime on duty, Kup knew he finally had that place all to himself and he looked forward to drinking his energon in the quiet solitude of the tower's great height. Sometimes it felt like he was up in space, he was so high. The stars were so close and the lights so far below. Still, the height didn't help Kup feel as though he was gaining any insight to the shadowed territory far in the distance. That was the place he would really give his good axle to be able to see.

The heavy footfalls behind him signaled to Kup that his solitude was short lived. But when the bulky, red form of Ironhide came into his vision, Kup relaxed again. He liked Ironhide. The two had much in common. Both were grizzled soldiers who had seen more than they cared to admit, cantankerous at times, but usually quiet when allowed to keep to themselves. Ironhide had a way of standing around you without making you feel like he was invading your space so Kup didn't mind him there at all.

However, it did catch Ironhide's attention that Kup kept gazing out at the horizon, mostly in the direction of Decepticon territory. He noticed how Kup would focus on the distance, as if trying to see with his own optics what was going on over there. Then he would scan left to right, as if expecting a raid from the skies at any second.

"Looking for anything in particular?" Ironhide wondered as he sipped at his own energon.

Kup scowled at the horizon. "I've come up here countless times and it's always felt the same to me: peaceful, open. But lately, I look out at those dark shadows and I can't help but feel like something is stirring out there." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the rail. "It feels like where it has been dead and dormant lately, there's been activity. I feel like something's going on out there and we're going to be the last ones to know about it. And I don't want to be the one caught with slag on my face when it all comes banging at our front door."

Ironhide nodded with a frown, completely understanding every word. There had been strange things going on. The Decepticons on high alert was only the beginning. The unexplained readings coming from the Black Zone ... Kup was right. It did indeed feel like the whole planet was in motion and the Autobots were the ones out of the loop, locked away in their shining fortress, unable to see what was coming.

"Too bad I may not be around to see it when everything hits the fan," Kup chuckled as he turned his back to the view. "Earth's sure a long jump, but I guess they think it's worth it to ship an old, rusted soldier like me all that way."

"You're on the Earth transfer, huh?" Ironhide replied. "It's not a bad place. It's got more sun and fewer Decepticons."

The frown etched itself in Kup's worn face plates. "And what the slag am I supposed to do with that? I'm a soldier, for Primus' sake! Without Decepticons, what good am I?"

Ironhide smiled to himself. "Maybe you should find a hobby while you're down there."

Kup grumbled something offensive low in his vocalizer that only made Ironhide chuckle. He continued to frown at the red Autobot as he realized Ironhide was not the Autobot he expected him to be. Of course, neither one of them would have been the same after four million years. While the Ark and its crew disappeared in Megatron's shadow, Cybertron continued to putter on weakly, barely hanging on to the last threads of energy left. The planet functioned for about one hundred years longer without the two faction leaders, until Cybertron itself and everyone on it finally fell from lack of energy. The entire metal orb fell dark, dormant and lifeless for most of those four million years the others were gone.

Only four hundred years prior to the awakening of the Autobots and Decepticons on Earth, did Cybertron rejuvenate itself. The inhabitants woke up again, realizing that the era they had lived in was no more. Optimus Prime and Megatron were still missing. With continued prejudice between Autobots and Decepticons, the war lived on. But it wasn't as intense as before. The political warfare began: a race for money, energy and trading rights with other planets to help keep their respective parts of Cybertron alive.

When word reached Cybertron that both Optimus Prime and Megatron were still alive, still carrying on their ancient battle on an alien planet, there had been mixed feelings from those still on Cybertron. Many built their own opinions of the Earth Autobots. Some expected them to be out of touch with the needs of modern Cybertron after being gone so long.

Kup himself had no such opinions. To him, it was once a soldier, always a soldier. No amount of time on any planet could change that. It ran deep in the spark and there would be no programming it out of you. This certainly wasn't what he was expecting at all.

"Hobby?" Kup demanded, looking terribly offended. "What do I look like to you? Some old codger ready to give up my wheels to the scrap heap? Spending the last of my years rocking away in some retirement facility? You gotta be slaggin' me."

Ironhide chuckled. A lighter sound than Kup expected to hear. Something undefeated that had long since died on Cybertron. More sun, fewer Decepticons, huh? Is that what it did to a bot?

"Nah, I don't think you'll ever give this up," Ironhide assured him. "But yer're gonna have ta learn ta do something with yourself when the war is over."

Now Kup was wholly confused. "Over? Who said this fracking war has an end?"

Ironhide thoughtfully sipped his energon as he looked to the darkness lurking past Iacon's mighty gates.

"Someone read it in some cards once."

Kup's brow furrowed in confusion and annoyance. "Somewhat read it in what?"

* * *

Darkstar really didn't want to be in this position, standing before a seething Spectre. The second was newly repaired, thanks to a few other femmes who had received some medical training. Catscratch would still be out of commission for a long time yet. It was a lengthy, tedious task to reattach a head back to its body. Darkstar was the most qualified to do it. She was going to be busy for quite a while, as soon as she had finished reporting to her leader.

"So, that little traitor went back to join the mechs," Spectre hissed, her large optics glowing dangerously bright.

"I can only assume so," Darkstar stated professionally, her face a complete, neutral mask. "She had the Decepticon with her when she shot me and she seemed intent on taking him with her. Ransack told me she picked up male Decepticon signatures in the area sometime after. I am still waiting for an official report with a solid time frame."

Despite the new energy generator created by Blitzangel while she had been their guest, Spectre continued to sit in the darkness of her quarters while the rest of the Deceptifemmes had been enjoying the brighter light. There was the high pitch of several pieces of sharp metal scraping maliciously along the wall.

"How dare she go back to them after what we have done for her? Our only consolation will be Catscratch's virus that will kill her at her very core. But this changes nothing. We shall continue our plans against the Decepticons."

Darkstar nodded as the twins, Dice and Domino, walked in, nodding respectfully to the darkness.

"Spectre," Domino said. "We went out to track the traitor." There was bitterness in her voice. "We found the trail of her energon and that of the Decepticon Soundwave."

"It leads to where we picked up the Decepticon signatures," Dice continued. "Soundwave's trail ends, but the traitor's continues."

All was quiet in the darkness for a while.

"So even the Decepticons didn't take her back," Spectre mused. "A fitting end for one such as her. Did you two follow it to make sure she had off-lined permanently?"

The twins frowned in unison.

"We followed the trail," Domino said. "But-"

"But the trail led into Female Autobot territory and then disappeared," Dice finished.

Spectre's optics flashed again in anger. The female Autobots knew how to counteract Catscratch's virus.

"How DARE they!" Spectre hissed. "Elita One should know better than to take in our outsiders! This mistake will cost her! I swear to it!"

Darkstar's face remained neutral, but the twins looked at each other, wondering what their leader had in mind.

* * *

The patient was to be strapped down; Patch insisted on it. After all, she was the enemy, outcast or not. Twilight looked a bit saddened when their medical officer insisted on such a thing, but Patch would not budge. It was impossible to tell what kind of temperament this Deceptifemme would have when she came online. That was, if Patch could get her online.

After the damaged Deceptifemme was properly restrained, Patch set about repairing her physical injuries. There were deep, sharp slashes and stab wounds with burn marks around the edges, the signature of a battle with the Deceptifemme, Catscratch. That usually meant the victim was infected with her virus as well. If she was still alive when she hit stasis, it was quite possible the Deceptifemme's systems shut down before the virus could do permanent damage to the spark. Even if she could be saved, it was a lot of time and resources to be spent on an enemy. Patch had her doubts as to whether it would be worth it.

Elita One was to make the final call. Firestar had to get permission from her before even bringing the damaged body anywhere near the base. So their leader was very much aware of who was in their med bay. Elita One came down just as Patch had finished her initial inspection on the body.

Patch was the smallest femme under Elita's command, at least two heads shorter than the petite Twilight, only slightly taller than the "cassette tape" bots. She was also one of the oldest. Patch had been a field medic for the greater part of the war and as such was an irreplaceable asset to Elita's team. The femme could fix any wound imaginable without flickering an optic and have the bot up at full power the next cycle. If she couldn't save this Deceptifemme, then she couldn't be saved.

Firestar was still in the med bay when Elita walked in, the former washing off the remaining fluids from carrying the body. Elita walked right over to the table and inspected the inert form. Several protective panels had been removed with a mass of wires and tubes snaking out of the exposed circuitry.

"What do you think, Elita?" Firestar asked as she worked on cleaning some of her joints. "Quite a find, huh?"

Elita One let her optics travel over the dark body, taking in the form and trying to find a match in her memory banks. "I am not familiar with this femme. I don't recall ever seeing her before."

"Yeah, me neither," Firestar confirmed as she approached the table. "Though I did hear a rumor that the D-Femmes added a few more to their numbers some time ago. A few of them who were hiding in space came back after Megatron disappeared. Maybe she's one of those."

"Perhaps," Elita said before joining her medical officer at the computer equipment. "What do you think, Patch?"

The smaller, orange and white femme jumped down from her chair. "I think there's a few things I need to show you first." Patch walked over to the step stool kept by the table and climbed up it so she could see over the examining table. Elita stood next to her, looking over the Deceptifemme's body.

"When assessing her damage, I found something very interesting," Patch continued. She reached for her patient's chest, from which the protective armor had already been removed. Patch pressed a certain place on the spark chamber and it slid open, revealing nothing inside.

"Slag," Firestar cursed. "We were too late."

"Yes," Elita agreed regretfully. "There is no sense repairing a body when the spark has already gone out."

"Well that's just the problem," Patch explained. "I scanned the spark chamber and there is no trace of residual spark energy. There was never a spark inside this chamber."

"So it's a decoy chamber," Firestar surmised. "The real spark must be hidden elsewhere."

"If it is, I sure can't locate it," Patch frowned. "I would almost have to say she was merely a sparkless automaton, but so many things don't make sense. For one, the craftsmanship of this body would take quite some time to put together. She's a classy model, not just built for security or sparring. I doubt the Deceptifemmes even have the resources to build a model of this caliber. Even if they did, I'm clueless as to why they would brand it, attack it, and then send it wandering on its own until its power drains out. Not to mention the type of energon I found in her is for living bodies only. If she were merely a droid, it would be less expensive to give her general energy and save the energon for themselves."

The medical officer then looking to Elita-One. "What do you want to do?"

Elita appeared momentarily at a loss at the question. This was not something she had encountered before. "What would you suggest?"

Patch closed the empty spark chamber and scanned the body again, though she didn't expect to find any different readings from the last time. "Well, I would suggest replenishing the energy reserves and powering her up to see what she does. But I do have to admit, Elita, part of that would be to satisfy my own curiosity. I am not entirely certain we would be saving a life here."

"But you think there might be a chance," Elita surmised from the words left unsaid. "Even a slight chance is still a chance. You have my permission."

A ghost of a smile crossed the older, smaller femme's face. "I anticipated as much." Patch jumped from the step stool and climbed back into her raised chair at the computer console. Fuel lines had already been attached to the body. The medic flipped a switch on the console and fresh energon, just enough to get it running again, was pumped into the damaged body.

Firestar had long surpassed her reason for being there, but she stayed out of curiosity to observe the results.

Only a minute or two was spent pumping the precious energy before Patch deemed it enough. Then she typed on her keyboard, sending signals to the other wires attached in the Deceptifemme's main processor located in her head. Signals were sent to bring the body back online. The red optic band flickered as the femme's processor booted up. Patch glanced from the body to her screen as she monitored the process. Almost instantly after the initial boot up, red sections began to light up on the screen.

"She has fully functional pain receptors," Patch relayed, sounding surprised. "That is not a system one installs in a sparkless drone."

The mystery femme on the table shifted, at least as well as she could in her restrained state. A pained moan escaped her vocalizer.

"She's definitely infected with the Catscratch virus," Patch continued. "Her pain receptors are lighting up her neural net like the Iacon towers."

The femme's moans crescendoed into cries of pain as she struggled deliriously on the table. One single word made it past her lips, her voice begging the pain to stop.

Elita had seen enough. "Shut her back down," she ordered.

Patch didn't need to be told twice, switching off all of the Deceptifemme's systems. The patient slowly settled back into stasis with a small whimper. Firestar walked up to them, still mulling over the one word the femme said through her delirium.

"Isn't that an Autobot's name?"

Elita just watched the lifeless frame, her face tense with worry as she weighed her options. As she did so, she heard the light, sharp footfalls of two other femmes as they stepped into the room.

"Firestar," Chromia greeted with high spirits. She must have just come from some mission in the field. She still had her blaster with her, slinging the large weapon over her shoulder. Chromia wasn't one for petite weapons. She liked big guns. "I heard you dragged in some Decepti-trash today."

Firestar just leaned casually against a counter. "You know me. I'm always part of the clean-up crew."

"Well, let's see what we got here." Chromia attached her large rifle to her back before sauntering up to the table to have a look. "Slag if I've seen a femme like that before. I was kinda hoping it was someone I owed some payback to."

The other femme she came in with, painted black and yellow with purple highlights, circled the table, looking at the body from all angles.

"Wow, branded one of their own. I thought the Deceptifemmes were a pretty tight group. Maybe this one broke the rules."

"Doesn't really make sense, does it, Roulette?" Chromia said, rubbing her chin in thought. "I haven't seen any branded Deceptifemmes since Megatron kicked them out of his ranks. They were usually branded and killed if they were caught deserting Spectre during her retaliation. Those femmes have been together a long time now. I don't see why they would suddenly turn on one of their own." She reached out and fingered the insignia on the femme's chest. "It's not even indented. Usually they brand them right through their armor."

"You know what I heard?" Roulette was bent over the table, chin in her palms next to the unconscious Deceptifemme's head. "I heard the Decepticons got themselves a femme in their ranks."

"That's the dumbest slag I've never heard," Chromia huffed. "Why in the pit would the Decepticons want a femme in their ranks after trying to annihilate them for so long?"

Roulette grinned at her, indicating the motives she was thinking of were not entirely wholesome activities. Chromia frowned and turned away, dismissing the entire thing. Roulette had a tendency to exaggerate, not to mention her processor was always in the gutter. Chromia did not consider it worth her time to believe most of what the black and yellow femme would say.

"That does make a bit more sense," Patch said to Elita. "If there was a femme working for the Decepticons, it would explain the insignia and why Spectre's Deceptifemmes tried to kill her."

"Let's find out for ourselves," Elita decided. "Repair the femme, Patch, but keep her restrained for safety. I also want you to have at least one armed guard on duty in the med bay at all times, just to be on the safe side."

Patch's optics flickered, satisfied her full curiosity would be met with this project. "I will do my best."

* * *

Blaster moved his energon out of the way as Mirage tossed a data pad in front of him.

"What's this?" the former asked suspiciously.

"A timeline," Mirage said as he sat down across from the orange Autobot.

Blaster sipped his energon as he looked over the chart, not really reading it, but pretending to. "Timeline for what?"

"I've been doing some research," Mirage explained. "I had Nightbeat dig deep and pull up any information he could find on that Decepticon we fought. That one that called himself Beatback."

Blaster instantly gave Mirage a warning look at the sound of that name. The blue Autobot was treading on very sore territory in a place Blaster was not in the mood to revisit. Mirage forged ahead, hoping to share his findings before Blaster shut him down.

"That Decepticon said he was there at the fall of Helix, right? But we don't have any records of this triple changer being part of the Decepticon ranks until after the Ark expedition. That's a couple thousand year's difference, Blaster."

"So?" Blaster shot back. The icy expression he wore was very unlike him. "What the slag is that supposed to mean to me?"

"It means that Decepticon was lying for one thing. And for another-"

Blaster stood up, cutting off Mirage's argument. "All it means is that Decepticon had a different name and maybe even a different design at Helix. That's all."

"But-" Mirage pressed. "What if-"

"No!" Blaster cut him off again, this time slamming his palms on the table. He boiled for a moment before trying to catch his cool again. "Look, dude, I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it doesn't change what happened. If she somehow survived we would have found her by now. I would have found her. I looked, believe me. I can't do it again. So let it go, okay?"

"Okay." Mirage reclaimed his data pad, the eagerness drained out of him.

Blaster turned his back on the blue Autobot and left the room.

* * *

It took over three full cycles for Patch to put the Deceptifemme back together. There was a visible change around the Female Autobot base with the new prisoner. Even though she was in stasis, tension was high. The Autobot femmes didn't much care for outsiders of either faction or gender. They were a tight-knit group, practically family. When someone new came in, it upset the balance and made everyone itchy.

Chromia was the worst of them. She was very protective of her Autobot sisters. Her suspicion and anxiety were practically tangible when she took her turn to stand watch over the med bay. Patch was relieved when Moonracer took her place for guard duty. The aqua femme, while equally watchful, wasn't wound quite as tightly and wasn't so fidgety with her trigger finger. It allowed Patch to concentrate more on her patient and work faster.

When the repairs were almost done, Patch hailed Elita One on her radio, as requested. The Female Autobot leader was just walking in as Patch closed the last armor hatch and snapped it back into place.

"So, the repairs are finished?" Elita asked, just to confirm.

"Externally, she should be running at full efficiency," Patch reported. "I won't be able to assess any programming damage without getting her online first. It's hard to test programming when a body is in stasis lock. The few tests I could run confirm she's got the Catscratch virus. I already injected her with an anti-virus program, but it takes several cycles for it to run its full course and delete all of the virus. The anti-virus program will begin as soon as we start her up."

"What about her spark?" Elita asked.

Moonracer had come up behind her leader now, idly chewing at a finger. It was a nervous habit she had.

To that, Patch could only shrug. "The Catscratch virus is designed to eat the spark from the inside out. The victim usually has only a few klicks before it's too late to apply the anti-virus. As near as I can tell, this unlucky Deceptifemme had that virus swimming around in her system for several joors at least. Maybe a whole cycle. Her spark shouldn't have survived. But the thing is, I still can't locate it, Elita." She gestured to the body on the table. "This body is like nothing I have ever seen before. Several of her internal systems contain metal not even found on Cybertron or from any of our major imports."

"Perhaps Firestar was right," Elita surmised. "This Deceptifemme has been off Cybertron for quite a while."

"Either way, I still cannot find that spark. I don't think the virus could find it either. I'm starting to wonder if she was built specifically to beat the virus."

"But that means the Decepticons built her," Moonracer jumped in. "There would be no need for the Deceptifemmes to build someone like this when they created the virus, right?"

Patch rubbed the spot between her optics. "It's giving my processor melt down trying to figure out all the possibilities."

"Yes," Elita One agreed. "She is the only one who can give us the proper answers." She nodded to the body on the table. "Make sure she is properly secured and then bring her online. We have much to discuss with this femme."

Patch nodded and Elita watched the smaller femme return to her controls. The Female leader knew there were many conflicting opinions about the new patient strapped down in the med bay. Some thought it was too dangerous to bring her here in the first place and Elita was continuing to put her femmes in danger by keeping this body here. But if this femme was willing to talk, there was much she could tell them about what was going on on the other side.

Both femme factions had been quite good at keeping to themselves and usually didn't start any skirmishes with each other. The Deceptifemmes were probably the lowest on the social ladder. They lived the deepest parts of the planet and had the smallest amount of resources to work with. It was hard to keep tabs on them. If it was possible to get some information from this strange femmebot, Elita wanted to chance it. Information was a precious commodity. It was worth the risk.

Patch checked her screens and then flipped the switch. The body of the Deceptifemme hummed and whirred as the systems began to come back online. Patch glanced at the neural net. Pain receptors were cold. The virus was clearing out. So far, so good.

"So we're waking her up, huh?" Chromia called as she sauntered into the room. Firestar and Twilight were behind her.

Elita noticed Chomia had her blaster on her, charged and ready to go. Restraints or not, Chromia didn't trust a Decepticon of either gender as far as she could kick it.

"Just keep your distance until I can get her online," Patch said.

The Deceptifemme's red optic band flickered on and the body began to move. The Autobot femmes waited quietly to see what she would do.

Blitzangel came online to confusion. All the information in her processor felt like it was swimming around without proper file storage. Thoughts and pictures came to her at random. She shook her head, trying to throw them all back to where they belonged so she could figure out where she was. The bright light above her made it hard to see. Someone dimmed the bulb and Blitzangel found she was in some sort of examining room. The next thing she was aware of was that she was strapped down, unable to move. That realization sent panic through her systems. She instantly sent an order to her arm blades, but they were held tight into their sheathes by metal cuffs. With no other option open to her, Blitzangel began to thrash, fighting against her restraints as best she could.

"You won't be able to use your weapons," Patch told her. "The restraints are so you don't hurt us or yourself."

Blitzangel just let out a growling noise in her engine and continued to fight for freedom.

Chromia did not like that reaction at all. She pulled out her impressive blaster and aimed it at the Decepifemme's head. "I don't think you heard the lady correctly. You need to calm down. Now."

The threat did not help the situation. Blitzangel scratched at the table with her fingers while the joints on her arm blades whined as she tried to force them out. There was an almost frantic need to escape in her actions.

Chromia's finger was twitching on the trigger when Elita grabbed her arm and pulled her away. "Stand down, Chromia. All of you, back away."

Firestar, Moonracer and Twilight backed into the shadows. After a moment to frown, Chromia did as well, blaster still in her hand. Now, the only one in the Deceptifemme's line of sight was Elita One. She stared their struggling prisoner down with calm, icy optics.

"We repaired you, femme. We will not hurt you here. You need not fear us."

The purple Decepticon just continued to growl at her, her engine getting close to overheating in her frustration to get out. That red optic band kept flickering as if there were a loose connection and she had yet to say one word. She seemed almost incapable of normal conversation.

Elita looked to Patch for assistance.

"Hmm... curious.." Patch mused. The small femme hopped from her console to the tabletop, walking around to stand next to Elita at the foot of the table.

"Let's try this." The medic raised a hand to cover Elita's Autobot emblem on her chest, masking her own with the other.

To Elita's surprise, the Decepifemme visibly calmed down, though she still had a hateful frown on her face.

Patch lowered her hands and the Deceptifemme's attempt to attack them increased.

"Just as I thought," the medic said as she returned to her console. "She's hardwired to attack Autobots. The aggression response is automatic when she sees our insignia."

As Patch began to type on her console, Elita covered her own insignia again. The Deceptifemme calmed once more, but continued to stare at her, tense as if waiting for an attack.

"Talk to me," Elita One said calmly. "If there is communication, there can be compromise."

The optic band flickered. The Deceptifemme shook her head as if trying to get her vision to clear.

"W-wwwwwhere am I?" When she spoke, her words would catch or skip like a damaged recording.

"You are at one of the strongholds of the female Autobots. I am their leader, Elita One."

Blitzangel's optic bland flickered with an emotion as she looked over the femme leader.

"Wwwwwwhat will you do-do-do-ddddddo with me?" She shook her head again as if trying to shake things back in order, frustrated with her own speech.

Elita looked to Patch for an explanation.

"It's the virus," Patch explained. "It couldn't find the spark so it just started wreaking havoc on whatever systems it could get a hold of. The anti-virus will help her repair the damage, but it's going to take a while."

"We did not bring you here to harm you," Elita told the Deceptifemme. "We have repaired your injuries and we are curing the virus in your systems."

"Then-then-then what do you w-wwwwant from me?"

"I would like some information. I want you to tell me what the female Decepticons are up to. What is their location? What are their plans?"

Blitzangel shook her head again. It was an odd reaction. Organic things shook their heads to clear their minds.

"Da-da-da-damaged mmmemory banks. I need time-time-time-Trying to put them innnnnnnn order."

Elita looked to Patch again.

"It might be a good idea," replied the medic. "It's likely we'll get more accurate information after her systems have had a while to heal. I'd say two cycles, maybe three."

Elita looked thoughtfully at the Deceptifemme that was now under their care."Is it possible for you to aid the repair, Patch? Can you delete the aggression files, maybe put some of her memories back in order?"

Blitzangel surged on the table, a mixture of anger and fear, surprising everyone.

"Don't touch me!" she screamed at them. "Stop messing with my head! Stop trying to control me!" Her thrusters flared. Her engine squealed as it began to overheat. Elita began to worry that the femme was going to injure herself, trying to rip her arms right out of the restraints.

Before Elita could give an order, the femme suddenly began to lose power.

"I'm sedating her," Patch reported as she typed at her keyboard. "I think she needs some time for the anti-virus to do its job, then maybe she'll be easier to talk to."

Elita one just nodded, watching as the Deceptifemme slipped out of consciousness. Her response had been upsetting. It gave her much to think about before she would decide what the next step would be for the prisoner.

* * *

Three days passed. Elita One tried to keep her mind on business as usual. There was always plenty to keep her busy. Emergency drills, security protocols, energy and ammunition inventories, patrol schedules, the list went on. But Elita's thoughts kept returning to the mystery femme. Her response had been so out of the ordinary. She could still see that desperation to get away on the femme's face. Something had happened to her. Someone had done something to that femme, Elita as sure. But how to help that femme- without jeopardizing everyone else under her care- was still something she was trying to figure out.

Elita wasn't too sure if going into the Deceptifemme's processor without her permission was the right thing to do, but she had little choice. She ordered Patch to remove the Autobot aggression from her processor and repair any top-level damage in programming without invading too many of the Deceptifemme's personal files. Patch reported she did her best. Most of the aggression was removed, but from what she saw, the Deceptifemme's files were a complete disaster. The femme would either need a programming genius to properly repair her or pray to Primus she had one slag of an internal repair system.

No matter what was going on internally, after the procedure, the Deceptifemme was quite a bit calmer when she was brought online. She had since been removed from the examining table to stasis cuffs and a holding cell. Despite worries from others, the femme had been a model prisoner ever since.

Still, Elita was at a loss for what to do with her. That femme was a large puzzle piece with curious edges that didn't fit anywhere. Elita One didn't like being uninformed and ill-prepared. She liked to think herself a patient femme. But when it came to the safety of her soldiers, her patience had a tendency to fade in the way of practicality. She was now counting down the kliks until Patch gave the green light to interrogate the Deceptifemme again.

"Hi Elita," a different pink femme called as she stepped into the control room where her leader was brooding. "Sorry it took me so long to get out here. Beta's been extra on edge lately. She wasn't going to let me out until she thought everything was absolutely safe."

Elita smiled in greeting to the much younger Autobot. Arcee was technically one of her numbers, but she was also the only femme in Elita's army that still had a living creator. Beta was also an extremely protective creator. Her age and wisdom made her a great asset to Elita's team so she was sure to do what she could to make the aged femme happy, even if that meant Arcee's participation in their cause was limited. The poor, young femme was always eager to get more involved with the war and to help where she could. But she also put Beta's demands first, whether she agreed with them or not.

"What exactly is Beta worried about?" Elita asked as she offered Arcee a seat next to her.

While Beta was a bit on the paranoid side, her worries were never without reason. If something had raised her concern, Elita wanted to hear about it.

"She's just a bit on edge with all that's been going on," Arcee said as she relaxed in the chair. "With Megatron back on Cybertron, the Decepticons have been more active. It's been so long since we've seen Megatron lead his own armies, Beta is still trying to figure out what he's after. And you know how Beta is, she doesn't like to make a single move until she has all the information."

"I'm a bit the same," Elita nodded, holding out her hand.

"Right." Arcee pulled a memory stick from her hip compartment and handed it over. "Beta hacked every server she could. The Decepticons show no record of the femme whatsoever. The Autobots had the bare minimum. I think they're trying to figure out who she is, too."

"Well, we'll see what they've got," Elita said as she pulled up the file. "The prisoner herself isn't being too helpful right now."

Arcee looked curious. "She's not talking?"

"Well, she's currently in recovery, but Patch hasn't even been able to get a designation out of her. I'm not sure if her processor is really that damaged or she just doesn't want to tell us." Elita paused as the file came up.

"Elita!" A sharp voice pierced the room before she could begin reading.

Chromia stalked into the room, irate, stasis cuffs hanging from her fingers. "Look what that little slagger did! She just picked the cuffs and tossed them out! I thought she was searched for weapons!"

"I thought you did the searching," Elita shot back. "I guess you missed something."

Chromia made a growl of frustration. "I didn't search for tools! She's a DECEPTICON! She's not supposed to have anything like that!"

"So what is she doing now? Did she try to get out?"

Chromia huffed as she tossed the cuffs on the console and plopped in a chair. "No, she's still just sitting there, quiet as always. With those blades free, she could probably cut her way out anytime she wants, but-"

"But she doesn't have anywhere to go, and she knows it," Elita finished.

"You're not making her one of us," Chromia insisted.

Elita just turned back to her files. "So this is all we have on our special guest, compliments of Iacon. It isn't much."

The three femmes looked at the screen. Chromia read out loud as she skimmed through the information.

"Designation: Blitzangel. Appeared in the Decepticon army when Megatron returned to Cybertron. Reports under Starscream's seeker armada. Was involved in the outpost raids. Extremely deadly and accurate. Kills Autobots on sight."

"I heard about those raids," Arcee spoke up quietly. "They were massacres. That's what Beta told me. No Autobots survived, except the last one where Optimus Prime fought Megatron himself. I understand they were able to save a few sparks that day."

Elita One looked down at her hands at the mention of Optimus. The Autobot commander had returned to Cyberton not that long ago. He came following Megatron. He did not come back for her.

"So the point is, this femme has been working for Megatron," Chromia spoke up. "No wonder the Deceptifemmes tried to put her out. And now we have this Autobot murderer in our base without proper restraints. What are you going to do, Elita?"

Elita One stood up. "We are going to have a talk."

* * *

Twilight walked softly down the long corridor toward the holding cell. It wasn't typical for the base to keep a prisoner. In fact, when this new Deceptifemme came into their med bay, they didn't have a place to hold her at all. Elita sent her best technicians to quickly get on the job to find and manufacture a proper containment unit. It ended up being a closet with the door removed and then fitted with energy bars. Twilight had once heard that air types could get claustrophobic in small, confined spaces. But this Deceptifemme didn't seem to care.

Twice a day, every day, Twilight went down to the cell to check on her. Today, Bayonette stood guard. She was a tall, leggy femme with a serious face. She had her laser rifle in hand, as Chromia ordered, since the prisoner took off her stasis cuffs. Twilight had been warned to be extra cautious of the Deceptifemme now, but she couldn't believe the prisoner wanted to hurt anyone.

"Hi!" Twilight called brightly to the bars. "I brought you some more energon." She had a tray of small cubes. There was no way to get anything into the cell without turning off the bars. Thus, to feed the prisoner, they had to generate small cubes that could be slipped in between the energy beams. Twilight thought it was a bit rude to just toss food to the Deceptifemme like she was an animal at a zoo, but there was nothing that could be done about it.

She squinted at the darkness of the cell. The Deceptifemme had not moved from the last time Twilight had come, crouched in the corner, back to the cell door and staring at the wall. Her dark colors helped her melt into the dim light.

Twilight huffed a little to herself as she noticed the energon cubes on the ground from the day before and the day before that. None of them had been touched. Yesterday's were losing their luster while the oldest cubes were already brown and useless.

"You really need to consume some energy," Twilight lectured. "It's not healthy to let your tank get low."

The Deceptifemme didn't respond or even move. She seemed to be uninterested in anything that happened outside of her corner. Twilight worried that maybe she wasn't getting any better. Patch insisted the anti-virus was working, but sometimes the femme would sit so still, only a twitch or a glitch now and then would give away that she was still functioning. Twilight felt very helpless at the situation. The femme needed to take care of herself, but was refusing to do so. There was nothing Twilight could do to help.

Other footfalls came down the corridor. Bayonette, who had moved closer to keep an optic on Twilight, stood at sharper attention when she saw who was leading the way. Twilight stood and stepped back as Elita One approached the bars. Chromia and Arcee stood behind her.

"Blitzangel," Elita One called to the shadows within the cell. "Is that your name?"

There was a slight venting of air from Blitzangel, but she did not speak.

"Did you fight with Megatron and his Decepticons?" Elita continued. "Is that why Spectre's femmes turned on you? Is it because you betrayed your sisters? And then the Decepticons abandoned you. They would not take you either. So now you have nowhere to go."

Still silence from the cell.

"Tell me what happened to you. Give us information about the Decepticon factions and I can help you. If you wish to return to wherever in space Megatron found you, I can do that in exchange for your cooperation."

Another vent of air from Blitzangel. Then her voice, low, but lacking the speech problems she had before. "There is nothing in all of space that I want."

"Now she's just feeling bad for herself," Chromia huffed. "Some Decepticon." She walked up to the bars. "Where is your pride, Decepticon? That's what Megatron beats into you, doesn't he? Where is your pride for Cybertron? Or did you lose it when you fled the planet the first time?"

"Chromia," Elita said. "That's enough. You're not helping."

"She's not going to tell us, Elita!" Chromia shot back. "Even if she did, how can we trust that she's not lying to us? We can't! I think offering to shoot her back out into space was the best idea you had."

Elita vented some air. Perhaps coming down here to question the Deceptifemme with an entire entourage was not the best idea. She would give it some time and then come back with a different approach in attempts to open a dialog.

"Autobots, return to your posts. There is still plenty of work to do."

* * *

The ship was round and heavy, painted unattractive shades of greens and grays. It sat in the sky like a fat toad looking for its next meal. Benadam did not care what his ship looked like to outsiders. It ran smooth as anything and it did the job. In his profession, it was the cargo, not the physical appearance, that was important. This cargo, if his lead was correct, was going to fetch him a handsome price indeed.

"Captain, we have reached the planet's coordinates," Muggle reported from the controls. "What are your orders?"

Benadam looked over his hodgepodge crew. They were a broad mixture of what lifeforms the universe had to offer. Only Benadam and his ship were from Xartin. And he was possibly the only crew member to lay eyes on the type of rare merchandise they were about to pick up.

"Get the Cybertronian on the line," Benadam ordered. "We need to confirm our location. There is no room for error here."

"Establishing connection, sir," Muggle responded. His flurry of eight long digits on each hand navigated the buttons effortlessly. "She's online, sir."

Benadam looked down at the screen on the arm rest of his captain's chair. The picture was dark and fuzzy, a result of the sender being down so far in the planet. But the audio was clear enough to be understood.

"You have arrived at the coordinates Captain?" Spectre's voice was sharp and crisp, even if the picture was not. Benadam still had no idea what the Deceptifemme commander really looked like. The room she broadcast from was far too dark.

"I believe I am in the right place. I just wanted to make sure," Benadam replied. "One mistake and we will have lost our chance for good."

"My instruments indicate your position is correct," Spectre responded. "You must attack quickly and take all you can before reinforcements come. You are quite right, Captain. You will only have one single opportunity. Make good use of it."

The Deceptifemme cut the connection before Benadam could offer a proper good-bye. Not that he had anything else to say. Any opinion he had on this issue he quieted in his head before it could permeate too far in his thoughts. There was no room for a conscience in this line of work. As strange as it would be to outsiders to see Cybertronian femmes selling out their own kind when there were so few of them left, Benadam was not in a position to question. He made far more profit from those giving up their own kind than not when it came to the trafficking of live, intelligent life forms. And this, a whole nest of a very precious commodity, was going to make him very rich.

He nodded to his mismatched crew. "Position confirmed. Drop the forcefield."

"Forcefield dropping, Captain," Snarg reported, his three orange eyes blinking at the control panel.

What appeared to be a blue beam of light in a cone shape shot from the belly of the ship, casting a perfect circle on the ground.

"Perimeter sealed, Captain," Snarg said.

Banadam nodded. "Let's make this quick, lads. No telling how fast they'll respond to us being in their air space. And this ship is no match for even a small troupe of Cybertronians. Start the vacuum."

Snarg flicked the switch. "Yes, sir. Vacuum activated."

* * *

Several levels below the surface, Elita One was seeing Arcee to one of the exit tunnels of the base.

"I wish I could stay longer," Arcee lamented. "I want to be of more help to you, to everyone. I see all of you working so hard..."

Elita stayed her with a shake of her head. "What you do is fine, Arcee. Besides, if anything happened to you, femme leader or not, Beta would string me up by my spark."

Arcee vented air in frustration. "I wish she would stop being so paranoid and let me out more. It's not like anything is going to happen to me. You would keep me safe, Elita."

There came a heavy shudder from somewhere up above.

"What was that?"

Worry flashed over Elita's optics for only a moment. "Don't worry about it, Arcee. Just go on home and give Beta my best."

Arcee was hesitant to leave, but orders were still orders. She transformed and drove down the exit tunnel.

As soon as she was gone, Elita turned back toward her base. No sooner was she climbing levels than multiple emergency sirens went off all around her. Elita One was instantly bombarded with several radio broadcasts at once. Everyone was screaming at the same time. She couldn't understand any of them.

"This is Elita One," she barked into the radio. "Someone tell me what what is going on!"

* * *

The forcefield hit the ground, spilling over the floor. It permeated every crack and hole until it made a seal. When the vacuum was turned on, all the metal, in a perfect hole, was ripped right out of the ground and sucked into the hulking ship above. The forcefield field sunk into the next layer, tearing that one out, and then the next. Layer by layer, it ripped into Cybertron, digging deeper to reach its prize.

The surveillance room was the topmost level of the Female Autobot base. The femmes watched dumbly as their ceiling was ripped out and sucked into the gaping maw above them. It was too surreal to compute that their base, so many levels down, now had a skylight. Mere seconds before anyone could react, the forcefield slipped around them, sliding into every crack on the floor beneath their feet.

They felt the field seal itself and then the vacuum sucked them up, screaming femmes, equipment, floor and all, into the hull of the ship.

* * *

Levels below, the entire base was quaking as if it were going to shatter apart. Chromia had been on guard duty of the Deceptifemme prisoner. When the base began to shake, she looked accusingly through the energy bars. Blitzangel, who still sulked in the corner, only raised her head in mild curiosity at the disturbance. It certainly wasn't caused by her and she seemed to have no idea what was going on.

SOS's-screams that were suddenly silenced- were clogging up every radio frequency. Chromia could not bear to ignore those cries. She took one last look at the prisoner and abandoned her post, blaster at hand, to help save her sisters.

The walls, floor, everything was shuddering more violently. Now alone, Blitzangel stood at the mouth of her cell and looked out. She could feel that whatever it was, it was getting closer. Blitzangel certainly wasn't going to get caught behind bars when whatever it was came for her. She unsheathed her arm blades with a sharp snap and powered them up. The blades crackled as they attacked the energy bars. A few good slices and she was free. Blitzangel stepped into the hall, sensors on high as she listened to the sounds of the chaos around her. The noise sounded like the danger was right above her. Then above was certainly not where Blitzangel was going to go. She took off down the hall, heading for lower levels.

* * *

Elita One was going crazy as she scrambled to get to higher levels as soon as she could. What perfect timing. It was killing her to not be there for her femmes. She couldn't get back to them fast enough. Elita could hear them screaming for help on all radio frequencies and she could not get back to them in time. Her spark burned with horror. What was happening to them? Primus help her get to them in time.

The hall was too small to transform. Elita ran on foot as fast as her muscle cables would allow. She hit a corner and almost plowed into another, smaller body coming the other way. Relief at finding one of her own was short-lived when Elita saw it was the Deceptifemme prisoner standing before her. Elita's first thought was that this femme was the cause of all the chaos and she reached for her weapon.

The ceiling was ripped off above their heads. Elita looked up, optics wide in complete bafflement. The moment her attention was turned, she felt a heavy shove in her chest, knocking her back several feet. Anger filled Elita's systems at being attacked. Her hand found her blaster and she was ready to fight the enemy. But a blue forcefield had already slid between the two of them, trapping the Deceptifemme within.

Blitzangel watched Elita calmly and then she was gone. The floor, the walls, everything contained inside was also neatly cut out and spirited away into the sky.

Elita dropped her blaster when she finally realized what was happening. She ran to the force-field, punching it with her fists, scraping at it with her fingers.

"No!" she screamed at it. "No! No! No!"

In the back of her processor, she knew she could attack it all day without any give, but she didn't know what else to do. She was frantic, angry and completely helpless.

* * *

Arcee knew both Elita and Beta would be cross with her if they knew she was doing this, but she was worried. She needed to have at least a quick look at the surface, just to make sure everything was alright. Instead of taking a tunnel that led deeper, she opted for one that would take her topside. Transforming into robot mode, Arcee promised herself she would just take a quick peek and no one would be the wiser. What she saw upon hitting the surface made her energon run cold.

Above where the femme base was stationed, a large spacecraft hovered. She could see the beam of bright blue light shooting out from beneath it and, within the light beam, massive amounts of metal was being sucked up. Without thinking, Arcee transformed and raced toward the danger. She swerved next to the field, transforming to get a better look. Now she could see the gaping hole in its wake and there were bodies, too, along with Cybertron itself, being pulled up into the ship.

Desperate to help, Arcee fired on the forcefield, which did nothing at all. She tried firing at the ship, but it was far too high for her small blaster to do any damage. Arcee looked around frantically. There had to be something she could do. This was too big for her to take on alone. She needed help. Where could she find help? To her right, the lights of Iacon tower caught her optics. Tires squealed and smoked as Arcee transformed and raced toward the city faster than she had ever driven before.

* * *

As soon as the ship had entered Cybertronian air space, the Autobots were aware of it. Prowl was the commanding officer on duty at the moment and he had everyone gathering information on the strange ship. It was in neutral air space which meant, technically, Prowl couldn't demand the ship identify itself. Further investigation reported the ship was non-military and did not seem to carry any kind of heavy artillery outside of the normal defense weaponry almost all space shuttles carried. Likewise, the ship was just sitting there, hovering in one spot. It did not seem intent on attacking anyone.

With its wide hull, Prowl guessed it was more of a cargo vessel. It was possible it was part of some sort of trade transaction. While that sort of activity had grown rarer with the space warp gate destroyed, it wasn't unheard of. There were still a few planets in the area with which to do business. As long as they stayed in the neutral air space and behaved themselves, Prowl could do nothing more than alert the other commanders of its presence and keep an eye on it.

A few moments later, it was reported the ship was emitting some kind of energy beam. It was possibly to either pick up or drop off cargo. It couldn't be considered a malicious action, so Prowl continued to wait.

"Uh oh, Prowl," Bumblebee called from his monitor. "I'm picking up a vehicle coming from the direction of that ship right toward Iacon. And it's coming up fast."

Prowl was instantly behind Bumblebee and Brawn as the two smaller Autobots fiddled with their instruments to give him more information.

"Scanners confirm, it's Cybertronian," Brawn reported.

"Get me a visual," Prowl ordered.

"I can't get the sky satellites to find a fix," Bumblebee said. "They're moving too fast."

"I've got a visual coming up on the city cameras," Brawn announced. "I'll bring it up for ya, Prowl."

Several shots of the vehicle from different angles appeared on the screen.

"It's an Autobot," Bumblebee marveled at the symbol on the vehicle's hood.

"And from that color scheme, I'd venture to say that's no mech. That's a femme out there," Brawn added.

Prowl frowned and got on the radio.

* * *

Sideswipe's engine roared as he raced toward the designated finish line in the courtyard. He slammed on the brakes, sliding over the finish line in victory before transforming.

"Woo! I won!"

Sunstreaker was instantly in his face. "You did not! I crossed the line first!"

Sideswipe pushed him away. "You so did not. I saw, 'Streak. Look at my skid marks. Yours didn't even make it to the line before you transformed. Cheater."

"Cheater? I'm gonna-"

"You turbo revving young punks!" A voice barked at the twins. They paused in their bickering as Kup stormed up to them. "Did you not see the mess you just made?" He gestured to the thick, twin skid marks now left all over Iacon during their race. "Have you got no respect for anything?"

"Easy old-timer, it was just a race," Sideswipe insisted. "No harm done."

"Ya wanna spend the next several breems cleaning up your mess?" Kup challenged.

Sunstreaker stuck up his nose. "Cleaning? That's hardly my job."

Kup's anger boiled a few degrees higher. "I expected more out of Prime's bots. But you two are just a couple of two-bit, grill-cracked, thrill-chasing young punks who don't care two blips about anyone but yourselves! We don't need any slack-wheeled, limp-axled, oil-leaking..."

It was about this time the twins tuned the old Autobot out. It was quite obvious they were no longer listening as Kup continued on his tirade.

"... with your fancy paint jobs and new spokes! It takes more than a cocky attitude to make it out here! You two should know that! But still you insist on parading your half-cocked, ugly cans around like-"

"UGLY?" Sunstreaker squawked. He instantly saw red as Sideswipe hurried to restrain his brother from behind before he could attack.

"Look who's talking, you walking can of rust!" Sunstreaker spat as he kicked uselessly against his brother's hold. "Come closer and say that to my face!"

Kup paused, impressed. "Well, well. One of you seems to have a temper. You should save it for the battlefield, lad."

Sunstreaker wasn't listening. "Get your optics checked, old man! I'm the most gorgeous thing in this stinking city! The Crystal Gardens didn't have scrap on me! I am modeled perfection! I-"

Every Autobot in the area received an alarm notice on his radio. The defense systems along the outer wall were switching off. The gates were opening to allow entrance to someone from the outside. All Autobots present in the yard tensed, unsure what was coming. A streamlined, pink and white vehicle raced into the yard and transformed. Now the general population stood in stunned silence at the sight of her.

"Sunny, it's a girl!" Sideswipe blurted as he dropped his brother.

Sunstreaker rubbed his neck as he was released. "I see that, dipstick." He promptly slugged his brother.

"Quick!" Arcee called to all the bewildered faces. "I need help! We're under attack!" She looked around at all the strangers. They were all just staring at her. No one was moving. They weren't doing anything. Why weren't they helping her?

In the sea of strangers, Arcee spied a familiar face walking out of the building.

"Jazz!" Arcee scrambled through the onlookers, practically throwing herself at him. She was shaking as she grabbed his arms. "Jazz! Help me stop the ship! They're taking everyone! Ripping it right from the ground!"

Jazz held her by her shoulders. "Whoa, slow down lil' lady. What are you even doing here, Arcee? What's going on?"

Optimus Prime was behind him. But even the impressive countenance of the Autobot leader didn't catch Arcee's attention. She was too frantic in trying to explain her emergency.

"That ship out there." She tried again to make herself clear. "That's the femme base. It attacked us! It's tearing the base up! It's taking everyone!"

Optimus Prime was already sprinting for the gate before Jazz could say one word.

"Jazz, gather everyone you can and head for the ship," Optimus called. "Sideswipe, Sunstreaker."

The bickering twins immediately stopped. Optimus didn't even need to give them instructions. The mere announcement of their names and the two were soldiers again. They transformed and sped after their commander, easily catching up to his hulking frame and barreling ahead toward the ship. Arcee transformed to race after them.

Built for speed, the twins took a large lead, reaching the ship first. There was a massive hole carved into the planet by now with tons of metal being sucked up. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker transformed, pulling out their weapons and firing at the ship's hull. Their aim was for the force field generator to end its assault on their planet.

Only a few shots, and the ship decided it was finished. Arcee had already arrived and Optimus Prime was closing in fast. Behind him, a large hoard of vehicles were rushing to help.

The forcefield beam faded, random pieces hovering in the air for a brief moment. Then it all fell back down. A huge wave spilled from the hull, once a part of Cybertron's different levels, it was now a river of twisted, torn metal.

Optimus Prime fired on the ship. His energy cannon was enough to shake the entire shuttle. In response, it rose into the air, still dumping metal, now over the collected Autobots. A few dove to get out of the way as the ship finished spewing the last of the scrap and shot up high into the atmosphere out of range. Soon, it appeared as just another star in the sky as it jetted off through space.

The area was quiet in the wake of such destruction. No one had encountered this kind of thing before.

Sunstreaker looked at Optimus as he put his blaster away. "Sooo... what do we do?"

Optimus Prime looked at the stars, trying to decide just that. What was he supposed to do? Where was his assistance needed now? He wasn't sure where they should start.

"I know the tunnels," Arcee spoke up. "I can take Autobots down there to find out if anyone got away."

That snapped Optimus into action as his processor began to plan. "Yes, I want at least two search teams down below. Jazz, organize those teams. Send the first one with..."

"Arcee, sir."

"Send the first one with Arcee. I want them down there now." Before Jazz could even acknowledge the order, Optimus was on his radio with Iacon's central tower. "Prowl, I need an excavation team on site as soon as possible. Put Grapple and Hoist in charge. Get Windcharger on it, too. Anyone who has any experience in the field. I need them here ASAP."

* * *

It was not her first experience with mechs, but Arcee had never been around so many at once before. They were of every size and color, and she had no time to even think about them. Her sisters might be hurt or dying. Saving them was forefront in her processor. But in her private thoughts, Arcee recalled Beta's constant worried warnings about all mechs. How they could be violent and stupid, how they could take advantage of her, force her if they happened to be that type of bot. How they could so easily break one's spark if she let them.

None of these soldiers seemed to be like that at first glance. If they had any curiosity or other inclinations about her, it was well-hidden by the distraction of the task at hand. One of them in particular, a red, older mech, took charge of the situation. He seemed to be of higher rank and was combing each section they came across with a meticulousness and urgency that impressed Arcee. He also seemed to be watching out for her as well, making her stand back if any of the tunnels seemed unsafe.

"Ironhide, I'm picking up some signatures," Springer called down a collapsed tunnel.

Ironhide turned to Arcee. "Now you stay put here where it's safe. We'll dig them out."

The entire team got to work, carefully shifting through the rubble with hopes of finding survivors. It was agonizingly slow work. Any wrong move sent more scrap spilling into the tunnel. It was not a safe activity for the rescuers, but still, they pushed on. There was a yelp as one of the soldiers found something. Arcee couldn't see, but the bigger mechs pressed their weight into the scrap pile to keep it from sliding while Ironhide pulled out the bodies.

When Arcee saw the familiar faces she couldn't hold back any more. She ran over as Moonracer was retrieved from the mess of piled metal. The femme was dirty and dented, but she appeared to not have any serious damage. Roulette's mangled body was discovered next. The femme had a metal pole lodged all the way through her chest, close to the spark chamber. She was dripping fluids everywhere.

Ironhide instantly got on his radio. "Blur, I need ya down here for an emergency pick up."

"Sir, there's one more," one of the soldiers called to him.

Ironhide instantly recognized the next femme and took point of fishing her body from the pile.

"Ironhide," Firestar greeted tiredly as he pulled her out. "Aren't you a sight for cracked optics."

Ironhide looked to her shoulder which had appeared to be sliced cleanly and was now leaking and sparking. "Firestar, how bad is your damage?"

She winced at the pain as she touched her wound. "Slaggin' forcefield cut it right in half. But it will be fine."

"Anyone else with you?"

Firestar looked back at the mess she had just been rescued from. "Negative. We were the only three in the tunnel when it collapsed."

Ironhide carried her over to where Arcee and Moonracer were attempting to give what first aid they could to Roulette.

"Firestar," Ironhide said quietly to her. "Do you know where Chromia is?"

Arcee heard the question with her sensitive audios. It was the tone of his voice, the worry, that caught her attention.

Firestar shook her head regretfully. "Everything happened so fast. All our communications went down. Everything is ruined. I don't know where anybody is. I'm sorry."

A whoosh of air filled the tunnel as Blur arrived. "I'mheretohelpIronhide. WhatcanIdo?" He saluted.

Ironhide picked up Roulette's damaged body and gently placed her in Blur's arms. The blue Autobot immediately looked uncomfortable in the female's presence.

"Take her to the infirmary."

Blur continued to stare at the body as if afraid his mere presence would break it further.

"Blur!" Ironhide barked. "The med bay! Now! Ratchet is waiting!"

That properly snapped him out of it and Blur was gone in a second.

"Mirage," Ironhide then said to one of the few present Autobots whose name he knew. He was still trying to learn everyone else's. There were so many Autobots still on Cybertron. It was hard to keep track of them all. "Get these two femmes topside. The rest of us are going to keep searching."

Mirage nodded as Ironhide and the rest of his team followed Arcee down the next tunnel. He helped Firestar and Moonracer to their feet and then offered for them to follow him to the surface.

Moonracer only managed a few paces before her damaged ankle joint finally gave out. She collapsed with a startled cry. A strong arm shot out to catch her around the midsection before she fell on her face.

"Um, thanks," Moonracer told Mirage softly. "I guess I was more damaged than I thought."

"Nice catch," Firestar grinned. "You've got some fast hands there." She was already looking the lengthy mech up and down.

Mirage cleared his vocalizer uncomfortably. "Well hopefully I can get you two up to the surface quickly as well."

Firestar kept smiling as she followed him. It had been so long since she had teased a self-conscious mech. They were always so fun. "Lead the way; we're all yours."

"Lucky me," Mirage muttered in a low voice.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," Mirage instantly insisted.

Moonracer, despite their horrendous day, couldn't help but giggle.

* * *

The task at hand was quite a gargantuan endeavor. The circular hole that had been cut into the planet's surface was a large one. It had eaten up a good portion of the femme base. Right now, it looked more like a landfill: a giant hole full of scrap metal. Every able body with appropriate skills and alt mode was cleaning out the chasm, hoping to recover any bodies that may have been buried there. Kup was overseeing most of the excavation while Prowl stayed in Iacon tower, keeping an eye on everything at the base.

In the meantime, two teams had been dispersed underground to check the tunnels around the wreckage to see if they could locate anyone. One was Ironhide's team, the second was led by Jazz and the twins. As time went on, a few femmes began to show up, either carried up by rescue parties or surfacing themselves. Ultra Magnus was taking a roster of each femme as she was discovered. It wasn't nearly as many as they should have found.

Optimus Prime stood by himself, soaking in his own thoughts. Elita One would not be happy with these numbers. There had to be others out there. He just had to find them. He had to find her.

"Prime," Ultra Magnus said as he approached. "I have a crew working on setting up proper housing for the femmes and I've diverted all able personnel with medical experience to the infirmary. We may be stretched thin for the next few cycles, but we should be okay."

"Good," Optimus nodded, though he seemed to be a bit preoccupied. "Make sure every one of them is taken care of. Make them comfortable and give them anything they need."

Ultra Magnus nodded, but Optimus wasn't even looking at him. The leader seemed to have something else on his thoughts.

"Is there something... distracting you, sir?"

Optimus, oddly, rubbed at his helm. "I think my audios are fritzing."

"Do you... hear something?"

"I don't know if 'hear' is the right word for it."

"You should go check it out," Ultra Magnus told him frankly.

Optimus was hesitant. "I don't think I should leave in the middle of this."

"Everything is being taken care of," Ultra Magnus insisted. "Everyone has their job to do. I will come with you. We'll be right back."

Ultra Magnus didn't even wait for a response before he started walking in the direction Optimus had been looking the moment before. Now feeling committed to go, Optimus hurried to catch up and then led the way. He couldn't really say what it was, but something was drawing him forward. The humans called it instinct or a sixth sense. Optimus didn't know what it was. He only knew that now that he was following it, he couldn't stop until he found the source.

Without any idea where he was going, Optimus led the way down below the surface of Cybertron. Level after level, he navigated the unfamiliar tunnels if he had lived there. Ultra Magnus stayed quietly behind him until he began to notice, the deeper they went, the more pronounced was the ringing in his own audios. As they moved even further, the ringing turned into a high pitched frequency. It was a sound that bounced and reverberated through the old tunnels. It was inaudible, unnatural, and it made Ultra Magnus want to reach for his weapon.

Optimus Prime did not seem to share his concern. He continued forward without hesitation. As they got closer, the noise sounded less ethereal and more like someone's voice. They found a junction in the tunnel and there, down the next corner, they saw the source of the sound.

Ultra Magnus had never met her personally. Very few had, especially once the femmes went underground. She lived more like a legend, a story, talked about with hushed tones as if she were too unbelievable to be real. No military training, no matrix, no past. She was an apparition of history, appearing out of nowhere, much like the great Optimus Prime himself. With all odds against her, she had taken charge, standing toe to toe with the heaviest hitters of the war. She had done things her own way and as such, saved the lives of countless, mechs and femmes alike.

There she was like a dream. Tall, proud, powerful. Angry. Frantic.

The dirty, battered form of Elita One clawed at the pile of scrap clogging the tunnel. She tore at beams and panels, tossing them out of her way, desperately trying to get in. At the top of her vocaliser she screamed every vile curse she could think of at that ship, at Primus, at the world. Everything was gone. Her base, her home, her family.

Ultra Magnus was frozen to his spot at the display. He had no idea what to do.

Optimus Prime moved on reflex. He walked up behind her, minding the scraps she kept tossing over her shoulder. She had built up quite a pile by now.

"Elita," he said gently.

She paid him no mind. Her limbs continued to obsessively dig into the metal. The paint on her hands was scraped off. A few joints were bleeding.

"Elita." Optimus tried again, more firmly this time. He grabbed her wrist from behind, then her other one when she tried to fight him. "Elita. Please, calm down. It's me."

The femme commander would hear none of it. She struggled for the metal heap, trying to get back to her digging. Her sisters had to be under there. She couldn't have lost them.

Optimus held her against him, wrapping both their arms around her and pulling her down to the ground.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Elita knew. She knew from the beginning there was nothing she could do, that all her efforts to dig would not save anybody. But what else could she do? She had been helpless to save anyone. Why had she been so useless when her femmes needed her most? Why couldn't she have saved them? The great femme commander was always one of action. Without that option, she felt as if she would go mad. Her screams continued to bounce through the myriad tunnels, echoing her pain.


	6. Chapter 6: Missing Sisters

Happy holidays everyone! I hope you enjoy your early Christmas present! If anyone wants to respond in kind, feel free to leave me a review for my gift.

Notes I forgot to post on the previous chapter: Femmes Twilight, Bayonette, and Patch belong to me. All others mentioned, including Beta and Roulette belong to Hasbro.

Units of measurement used in this chapter and the previous one:

Cybertronian (Their day cycles are longer than hours, so their definition of a minute, hour, ect is longer than ours as well)

Klick: minute

Joor: hour

Cycle: day

Breem: Month

Xarnese:

Glax: year

Quarhex: about 6 hours

Rising Generations  
Chapter Six: Missing Sisters

Elita One waited for the report. Even though she already knew what the results would be, she had to see it with her own optics. After the initial tunnels had been cleared and all the stray femmes found, the Autobots spent over two days excavating the gaping hole where the Female Autobot base used to be. Piece by piece they pulled out all the torn scrap metal, looking for bodies. They found none in that pile. Elita had suspected they wouldn't. She knew what that ship was for: it was meant to weed out the bodies and expunge the scrap, taking only the live cargo-the valuable cargo-her femmes.

Even knowing this, they had to look. They had to make certain no one was left behind. They had to dig merely to feel useful in a very helpless situation. Now there was nothing else that could be done. Elita's missing femmes were no longer on the planet.

"So what do you wanna do, Boss?" Jazz asked, arms folded over his scarred chest. He kept his voice low and calm as he leaned casually against the far wall, giving Elita all the room he could.

The only ones in the room with the femme leader were himself, Prowl and Optimus Prime. Everyone had walked on eggshells around Elita since the attack on her base. As strong as Elita was, it was hard to recover from such a defeat. Never before had she suffered the loss of so much life in so little time. They weren't just soldiers. They were her dear friends, her family, her sisters. There had been nothing she could do to save them. It hurt more than she knew how to express.

Patch was gone, taken by the ship with all the others. Elita missed her terribly. Patch, with her years of experience and her patient, intelligent mind, was always the one Elita went to when she needed advice or a second opinion. Especially when Alpha Trion disappeared. Beta was a poor replacement for him with her paranoia and cynicism. Patch was Elita's confidant, her friend. Without the older femme to go to for guidance, Elita felt she had lost part of her own ability to decide was what best for her femmes.

Aside from coming out to check on the femmes she had remaining, both in the med bay and the bunker, Elita spent a great deal of time in her new quarters. She needed time to properly mourn her loss before she could move on. Nobody bothered her if she was in her room, thanks to Optimus Prime's orders.

After the last of the excavation was complete, Optimus disobeyed his own orders to bring the final report to Elita personally. He took Jazz and Prowl with him. Elita knew them from before the femmes went underground, but his two seconds were dubious as to whether their presence was needed. Prime delivering the report alone would have been a good opportunity to help Elita in her time of mourning on a personal level.

Optimus had been maneuvering his actions into keeping everything between himself and Elita as official and proper as possible. Maybe he was doing it to save face with all the Cybertronian soldiers, who were still getting used to him as their leader. But even Prowl, the stickler for protocol, had to agree that Optimus certainly had the right to break the facade and be there for Elita personally behind the privacy of closed doors without earning any undue criticism. In Prowl's opinion, Optimus was wasting a perfect opportunity to be there for his femme by inviting his two seconds to go with him.

Nonetheless, they were there now and Jazz had asked a good question.

"We will continue with our current plans for those we have here," Optimus answered. "The extra facilities for the femmes are still being built and we will continue to provide Elita's troops with medical care and necessities. In the meantime, Prowl, I am putting you in charge of gathering a research team. Find out everything you can about that ship. We will track it down and send a shuttle after it if we have to."

"You won't find it," Elita said. "They're professionals, they make it their business not to be found."

"So you know who it was," Prowl concluded.

"No," Elita corrected flatly. "I just know what they are. They are body traffickers. They buy and sell lives when and wherever they can. They know how to kidnap and then disappear, and they have become very rich doing it."

"So, these guys just happened by Cybertron and thought they would see what they could find down here?" Jazz wondered.

"Oh, they know what's on this planet." Elita got up and started pacing in the back of the room. "The Decepticons aren't the only things we have to worry about." She paused to look at the three males. "Do you have any idea how much a Cybertronian is worth on the black market. How much a FEMALE Cybertronian is worth? They risked their lives coming here. They could have been shot down by either side at any time, but the money they would make was worth the risk.. With the number of femmes they took, they're all going to live like kings and there's nothing we can do about it."

Elita was fighting to keep her voice under control as her frustration grew. "They're going to sell them all to the highest bidder, if they haven't already. My femmes are going to be scattered across the galaxy in a matter of cycles. The chances of us finding even one of them are dwindling by the minute. What good can you do about it?"

Elita seemed to be directing the challenge more at Optimus, but Prowl's processor was already whirring.

"So... how exactly did they know where you were? We didn't even know the exact location of your base. How was it that they were able to strike so precisely?"

Elita's shoulders fell just a hair. She knew who it was and she knew why.

Firestar walked in without knocking, interrupting any answer Elita would have given.

"I heard they finished," the orange femme said, ignoring the males in the room. "They didn't find anyone else, did they?"

Elita sat back down, shaking her head.

Firestar clenched her fists. Chromia was one of the missing. Her best friend, the one who always had her back, was gone. Poor Ironhide had been out there digging the entire time. It was going to be a long, lonely drive back to Iacon for him.

"You know why this happened, don't you, Elita?" Firestar demanded, her temper rising in her grief. "This was Spectre. She did this to us because we took in that Deceptifemme. Chromia knew something bad was going to happen and now she's gone! Slag, Elita! You should have listened to her!"

"I know," Elita said softly. "I put all of us in danger. I thought I was doing the right thing. You can blame it all on me."

A great conflict was reflected on Firestar's face. She wrestled with the anger of losing her best friend and the knowledge that Elita One had given up everything to save the lives of her people time and time again for thousands of years. As badly as Firestar wanted someone to be angry with, compassion for her leader won out.

"So what do we do now?" Firestar asked quietly.

Elita's voice sounded tired. "Go back to your duties, Firestar. Make sure everyone has proper medical treatment. Report back to me when the last femme has been repaired."

"Okay, I'll get back to that. Let me know if you need anything," Firestar said as she turned to exit. "Boys." She nodded to the three mechs she had not acknowledged until then on her way out. The door slid shut behind her.

Elita sat quietly, her fingers steepled to her mouth in thought, not giving the presence of the others in the room too much mind. Optimus Prime watched her hesitantly. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted to talk to her, but he did not know what to say to her anymore. The things he had learned about her the last time changed everything and he was still trying to find solid ground when it came to being with her again.

Prowl, as sharp as ever with details, had no such compunctions."Firestar said 'Deceptifemme.' Did she mean female Decepticon?"

"That's impossible," Jazz cut in. "They're supposed to be extinct, aren't they? Megatron wiped them all out a long time ago."

"Unless the rumors are true that some escaped the planet," Prowl said.

"There are still female Decepticons," Elita One confirmed. "Not just among the cosmos. They have hidden themselves on Cybertron as well. Spectre still leads them. They hide deep in the planet, deeper than even my femmes are willing to go … deep in the Black Zone. They are few, but they are dangerous and desperate. We try not to have anything to do with them if we can help it."

"I've heard of Spectre," Jazz said. "She went batshit on Megatron-er..." He corrected himself when Prowl glared at him and Elita gave him a questioning look at the unfamiliar phrase. "I mean, she went crazy and attacked Megatron. I thought he killed her."

"He got to her enough," Elita confirmed. "She was presumed dead for a few hundred years, then my intelligence started hearing rumors of an underground Deceptifemme division led by Spectre. I've never seen her face, but I'm quite sure she's still down there somewhere.

"A few cycles ago, we took in a female Decepticon that had been attacked by Spectre's Deceptifemmes. She was shredded to pieces and half dead when she was discovered. At first we thought she was one of Spectre's and they had turned on her for some reason. But according to your own files at Iacon, this femme had been working under Megatron."

"You mean Blitzangel," Optimus said neutrally.

Elita didn't notice the wide optics that Prowl and Jazz gave each other. She was hiding her face in her hands.

"I made a bad decision," Elita sighed. "We kept her as our prisoner while she recovered. I meant to interrogate her when her systems healed, but I waited too long. Spectre must have sold our information to those traffickers in retaliation for taking in their enemy. I never should have allowed her in the base. We should have left her there."

Optimus sat down next to her. He didn't sit close to her, just next to her. "You did the right thing. It is the same thing I would have done."

Prowl dared to step forward to get into Elita's space. "What did you do with her- with the prisoner?"

Elita pulled her hands away from his face so she could talk to him. "I saw her when the attack happened. She escaped her cell during the raid." Elita paused again to gather herself and keep her voice steady. "That femme saved my life. That force field would have cut me right in half. Or, if not, I would be in that ship, too. She pushed me out of the way. Then she looked at me... so calmly. Then she was gone, sucked up into the ship with everyone else."

Elita rubbed at her temple. Of all the horrors that happened that day to those she cared about, this total stranger stuck in her processor. She couldn't stop thinking about the expression on that Decepticon's face. While she was their prisoner, Elita saw fear, rage and dejection. But that one moment, when they were separated by the field, the Decepticon looked at her with peace in her expression, as if accepting her fate, even as Elita screamed at the Decepticon while she was torn away into the sky.

The door swished open again as Prowl left the room, purpose in his stride. Jazz glanced from the two leaders to the door, then to the two leaders again. He turned and hurried out.

All that was left in the room was the femme leader, the Autobot commander, and uncertain silence. For some reason, Elita was hesitant to look at Optimus with anything more than the corner of her optic. She felt the presence of him radiating off that body, so much larger than her own. He was so close. Closer than he had been in what felt like a very long time. But she couldn't look at him, nor could he her. Elita wasn't sure why.

"Elita." Optimus said her name slowly, gently. "If there is anything I can do for you, anything. Tell me. I will do what I can for you."

He was having a hard time looking at her, too. Still, he stretched out his hand. Elita put her hand in his and her dainty digits were swallowed by both masculine palms. Optimus stared at their hands intently, unwilling to look her in the face.

"I am here for you. I am." He said it with conviction. Elita could feel conflict swirling inside of him, even as he held her hand as if it were a most precious treasure. "I am."

* * *

Jazz found Prowl a few hallways down. The black and white Autobot was trying to be inconspicuous in the corner while he purged in a trash receptacle. His hands were trembling as his tank lurched again. Jazz waited for him to finish, hands on hips.

"You really need to see Ratchet about this. If you pull a Sideswipe and the doc has to replace all your internal systems _I'm_ going to be the one to kick your can across Iacon."

Prowl panted over the receptacle. His tank was still deciding whether it was finished. "It's under control."

"I don't think it is," Jazz said sternly. "It's stressing you out. I've never seen you bent out of shape this bad, man. It's not good for ya."

Prowl scowled at him. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Prowl repeated those words Jazz had heard countless times. "I'm not giving up on this."

Jazz stood in his way. "I know, you don't like giving up on anything, but you need to let this go or you're not going to last much longer."

"You haven't let it go," Prowl accused, noting Jazz's scarred chest.

"I'm also not the one spewing my insides in the trash. This is how I'm coming to terms with losing her. You need to do the same."

"Just because we can't track the ship doesn't mean we should just give up-"

"You don't know it's her!" Jazz interrupted, perhaps a little louder than he meant to. "Ratchet doesn't even think it's her! What if we dog that ship to the ends of the universe? What if a million years pass and we finally track down every underground trace until we find her and then it turns out it's not her? Then what, Prowl? Will you find another shadow to chase until you run yourself into the ground? That's no way to live. Crys wouldn't want you to make yourself sick with obsession until you tear yourself open from the inside out."

Prowl's glare grew stronger. "So you're saying if she's still out there somewhere beaten, tortured, dying, she would be okay with us quitting the search because it was a little stressful?"

Jazz didn't offer a response and Prowl shouldered past him, stalking darkly down the hall. As he rounded the corner, Prowl's hard facade faded for a moment. In truth, he really didn't know how much longer he could deal with this. Life was so much easier when he had his battle computer, when he didn't have to feel.

* * *

As she was ordered, Firestar dutifully returned to the med bay. While the elevator took her down to the correct floor, she pulled out her data pad to peruse her medical reports. All of the femmes with minor injuries had been repaired and were now joining the others in the slightly crowded storage bunker-turned-emergency-quarters. From what Firestar had heard, the Autobots were building a larger building with full facilities to house them all comfortably. From all outer appearances, it seemed the plan was for the femmes to stay in Iacon for a good long while. In Firestar's opinion, it was about time.

The elevator stopped halfway to her floor and opened, revealing a blue mech. His optics grew twice their size when he saw there was a femme in the pod already.

"Hi," Firestar greeted. "I think I remember you. From the tunnels, right? The really fast guy."

Blurr fidgeted nervously. "Uh...IthinkIforgotthatIdon'treallylikeelevators. I'mtakingthestairs,bye!"

He disappeared in, well, a blur, leaving a smaller Autobot to get on with Firestar.

Brawn was frowning, unimpressed as he pressed his floor. "These younger bots act like they're not programmed how to act around a femme. It's not like they haven't seen one before," he muttered.

Firestar smirked down at him. Blurr wasn't the only one. Firestar was one of the few femmes whose duty it was to constantly come and go in the halls. It did not escape her attention that most of the mechs were extremely unused to seeing a femme in their base. Some would give her a wide berth in the halls. Some would walk a bit too closely behind her. Most just stared. Chromia would have found it most bothersome if she were here. She probably would have given the close walkers an audio full. But Firestar found it kind of fun to be given so much special attention. She missed fraternizing with the opposite gender.

"So you're saying you know how to treat a femme, huh?" she asked teasingly.

Brawn didn't return the tone of her banter. Unlike most of the mechs at the base, he seemed quite uninterested in her presence.

"Let's say I've had enough experience with them to last me a lifetime."

Firestar looked intrigued, optics shining.

"It's not what you think," Brawn insisted. "I had three sisters. They had several friends. They were always over at our place."

Firestar was impressed. "That's a pretty big family. Your creator must have kept busy. Mech or femme?"

"Both. I had two creators who liked to build. They kept each other busy."

The orange femme guffawed. "I bet they did! So these sisters, anyone I might know?"

"Didn't live too long after the war started, I'm afraid," Brawn said quietly. "They were all too gentle for that kind of thing."

Firestar instantly sobered. "I'm sorry."

"It was for the best, I suppose." Brawn sighed. "They wouldn't have been happy in this type of world anyway."

The elevator stopped on the med bay floor.

"Well if you want some new sisters, we've got plenty to go around," Firestar said as she got out.

Her joke was ignored. "We'll find the others," Brawn said seriously, surprising her.

The doors closed and the elevator pod continued further down the tower.

Firestar made her way to the med bay. She felt like she was in here more than she was the femme bunker. When she walked in, the head medical officer, Ratchet, only glanced up at her for a moment before continuing with his work. He had become used to sharing space with her. Even with all the femmes in his med bay the previous days, Ratchet didn't act like most of the others. He was all about the job. All he saw was a patient, a body with bolts and wires that was broken and needed fixing.

He wasn't too chatty, either. Even though Firestar was constantly there, making sure all injured femmes were repaired and accounted for, Ratchet never felt like he had to keep noise going on in his bay to stay comfortable. Most of the time, he would just tune everything out as he worked. The only talking he did was to bark orders at his medical assistants or ask for information from his patients. Firestar noticed his tone was softer when addressing the injured femmes.

Other than that, Ratchet stayed quiet. He never tried to start up a conversation with Firestar, no matter how long she sat in the med bay. Nor would he let any of his other assistants lollygag in his bay, even if they were on a break. Ratchet ran a tight ship. The result was newly-repaired femmes being churned out of the med bay at a breakneck pace. It was pretty amazing to watch him work. Ratchet seemed to understand it wasn't just important to repair the femmes. After what they had been through, the medical officer knew it was equally important to get them back to their sisters as soon as possible so they could support each other in their time of loss.

He really was an amazing mech, even if Firestar still had yet to have a full conversation with him. She enjoyed just watching him work, bent over the medical table, deeply engulfed in his job. Oh yes, she could gaze at his back end all day. His face wasn't too bad, either.

"You know, you should take a break. You've been going for almost three cycles," Firestar said to fill the empty silence.

"Took a break while you were gone," Ratchet responded, not looking up from his patient.

The only femme left to repair was Roulette. She had been the worst of the injured: a piece of metal had stabbed through her chest. When she was rushed to the med bay, she was already in stasis lock before the medics could look at her. A small fraction to the left and it would have been her spark to be pierced and there wouldn't be anything to fix. Firestar was not looking forward to Roulette's reactivation. Her sister was among those missing and Roulette was not well known for having a level head. It wasn't going to be pretty at all.

"Liar," Firestar grinned at him. "You can't stand to see a single medic take over for you. You like to do your own work."

"That's because these slagging green yahoos are too young to have had proper training. Half of them can't even tell me the last fragging time they spoke to a femme, let alone saw the internal systems of one."

Ratchet wasn't one to hold back his language, even in front of a femme. Not when he was in his med bay. This was his kingdom and whatever he said was law in here. Firestar found it quite amusing. As much as she was enjoying the special treatment from the rest of the base, she also didn't mind being one of the boys now and then.

Firestar crossed her long legs as she watched the medic. "So you're saying you've had a lot more fragging time with femmes and their internal systems?"

Ratchet paused when he caught her innuendo and rewarded her with optic contact. "I'm experienced enough and we'll leave it at that."

Firestar was grinning. Ratchet was fun to talk to, when she could cajole more than a few words out of him.

"Firestar."

She heard a male voice call her name, but it wasn't Ratchet. In fact, it was a voice far more familiar.

"Inferno. I was wondering when I would see you." She stood to greet the much taller mech.  
"Yeah, I've been off-base with another team for a while." Inferno's smile turned a little regretful. "I'm sorry to hear what happened."

Firestar wanted to hug him. It was nice to see a familiar face. Maybe Inferno wanted to hug her, too. But he was not one of those physically affectionate mechs. So both would have to settle for close proximity.

"So where's Red Alert?" Firestar then asked. "I'm surprised he's not all over this crisis, trying to put everything in order."

"Red's down on Earth again. He's full security director down there. In fact, I think he might even be commanding officer at the moment until the rest of the transfer takes place."

"Wow, a promotion, huh? I'll have to congratulate him when I see him," Firestar said. "Earth, that's the planet you were stationed at the last time, right?"

Inferno managed to notice Ratchet was giving them annoyed looks from his work table. At first, he thought Ratchet was irritated that he was talking to Firestar. But then Inferno decided the glare was merely for talking when he was trying to work.

"Come on, 'Star. How about we go get some energon and do some catching up?" he asked.  
"Sounds good." She turned to the medic. "We'll bring you back some, Ratchet. Don't work so hard."

The medic only grumbled something lowly as he continued working on his patient.

* * *

Arcee was having the best time of her life. However, she couldn't say it to anybody out loud, not in the wake of such a tragedy. And it was tragic, Arcee never wanted to forget that. In the space of minutes, so many were lost. Good femmes, who might have been her friends if given the chance. Not that Beta ever gave her that chance. Arcee knew many of them by name, knew what they did and what their specialties were, but she was never that close to any of the femmes under Elita's command. Beta kept Arcee on a tight leash. She could only go to the femme's military base on important errands and she was never allowed to stay long. Certainly not long enough to really make friends. The loss of the base was a great one, but Arcee wasn't hit as hard as the survivors. It felt like she lost comrades, not family.

Firestar instantly recognized this in Arcee. So much had been going on in the last few days, she hadn't even stopped to wonder why Arcee hadn't gone back to Beta. There was too much to do. Arcee, being in a much more stable capacity than most of the femmes who managed to dodge abduction, was a perfect candidate to help out. Firestar put her right to work. While the orange femme was watching the wounded, Arcee's job was to make sure the male Autobots had an accurate list of everything the femmes needed. Not just energon, but routine maintenance supplies, data pads, light bulbs, and anything else that happened to pop up.

In actuality, Acree's job wasn't too involved. She just had to make a list and turn it in to the right bots. She could have even handed it to Firestar if she so wished, but Arcee was taking full advantage of her freedom while she had it. When venturing out of the femme bunker to present her report, she would deliberately detour all over the main tower before arriving to her destination. She would usually search out either Jazz or Ironhide, since she knew them. They were easy enough to find, but Arcee liked to pretend she needed to give the base a good looking over before she could discover their hiding place.

Iacon was just so fascinating. It was so bright and busy and full of life. Any males she passed in the halls that stopped to stare went unnoticed. Arcee was too busy staring herself. The broad hallways, the tall ceilings, so many large, bulky, male bodies. She had never seen anything like it before. It was so distracting, she ran right into a brightly colored chest, flames painted around an Autobot insignia.

"Arcee, hi."

Arcee gaped into the face for a moment, accessing her memory recalls. "Oh, Hot Rod! Hello again. I was wondering if you were actually stationed here. Jazz said you were, but I wasn't sure where to look."

"We've been busy doing cleanup duty at your base these past three cycles," said a deeper voice.  
Arcee finally noticed a taller, broader green Autobot at Hot Rod's side.

"Uh, this is Springer," Hot Rod said. He didn't look too thrilled about introducing the larger bot to her. Arcee didn't notice. She was thrilled to meet as many new faces as she could.

"Hey there," Springer grinned a very charming grin. "You lost, pretty femme?"

Arcee clutched the report to her chest, a bit self-conscious that they caught her wandering around instead of going directly to a supervising authority.

"Oh, well... no. I just wanted to look around and-"

"Arcee." Ironhide's voice cut through the air like a knife as he marched up to them. "These two giving you any problems?"

Her optics grew wide at the accusation that she was being mistreated. "Oh, no sir. Not at all!"

"We were just going to show her around," Springer offered calmly. "It would be important to know where everything is around this very large base, don't you think?"

Ignoring him, Ironhide looked pointedly at the data pad she was clutching. "That the report?"  
"Uh, yes, sir." Arcee handed over her only reason to be up and about.

Ironhide glanced the report once over and then returned his distrustful gaze toward the three younger Autobots. "Do you feel you need a proper tour of the facilities, Arcee?"

Arcee glanced from Hot Rod and Springer to Ironhide. "Well, it might be pragmatic to fully learn my way around. It will help me maneuver the area more efficiently. And you never know when proper knowledge of the base's layout would become beneficial in an emergency situation."

Ironhide vented some air. "I would do it myself, but I've got too many things to do." He looked at Springer and Hot Rod. "You two okay with showing her around properly?"

"Sure! We can do that!" said Hot Rod, a little too eagerly.

Springer saluted in a casual style. "Yes, sir."

Ironhide was still frowning at their grins and Arcee's excited face. "You behave yourselves around her, you understand me?" he growled at the mechs.

Both promised propriety with wide optics. Ironhide glared at them once more before turning to leave. Though no matter what he said, Ironhide knew he couldn't stop the natural wheels from turning any more than he could stop the stars from shining. With mechs and femmes, males and females, now under the same roof, the two would eventually be drawn to each other. It was the natural order, the inherent pull of things. Especially when it came to the younger ones who weren't as used to the other genders.

Not that Ironhide thought badly of love and romance. That would make him a hypocrite. But Primus help him, he certainly wasn't looking forward to the full blown infatuations and lovey-dovey shenanigans that he would have to put up with. As alone as Ironhide was feeling these days, he just wasn't in the mood to stomach it.

He stepped into a meeting room where Optimus Prime, Ultra Magnus, Prowl, Jazz, and Kup were already waiting for him. They were in the middle of discussing whatever business was on the table when Ironhide took his seat, already looking through his own reports.

"Sorry I'm late. Had a lot ta do," he said without looking up. Usually he wasn't invited to this type of meetings. Prowl would just send him any notes that he would need to know afterward. Ironhide hardly saw it prudent to be punctual.

"You came right on time," Optimus said. "We were just discussing Elita's team."

"Mmhmm." Ironhide was reading more than he was paying attention. "Got their request list right here, Prime. I'll make sure they get everything they need."

"There was one other thing we think they require," Prowl took initiative to talk.

"Mmhm," Ironhide agreed distractedly. He was mentally going through which items he could get where on Arcee's list.

"We all agree the femmes need a liaison. Someone who can bridge the gap between the two teams and make it easier for us to eventually integrate into one."

"Mmhm."

"Someone who isn't one of theirs. We need one of ours to be that liaison. Someone they trust."

"Mmhm."

"We believe it should be you."

"Mmh-holy- wait a fragging minute here!" Ironhide dropped his data pad and slammed his palm on the desk. "You want me to smooth out relations with a whole bunker full of femmes? You glitches must be outta yer processors. Why me?"

"Elita trusts you," Optimus said simply.

"Well, yeah, I know Elita does, but-"

"Firestar trusts you," Prowl added.

"Yeah, cuz I've known Firestar since-"

"Arcee likes you," Ultra Magnus offered.

"Now hold on, slaggit! Arcee has the experience of a sparkling fresh out of the chamber. She don't got enough sense in her to know who she should like!"

"See?" Jazz said. "I told you he wouldn't want to do it. I'll be the liaison."

"You're not being the femme liaison," Prowl told him flatly.

"But Ironhide doesn't want to do it and I do. I have experience with femmes. I can handle them."

"No, Jazz," Prowl insisted. "I know your definition of handling femmes."

"Oh come on, Prowl. I can do it just fine. I know how to properly-"

"Slaggit, Jazz, the bot said no!" Kup suddenly snapped. "Now mute your processor!"  
Jazz slouched in his seat like a reprimanded child.

Kup turned his gaze to Ironhide, his voice taking a more business-like tone. "You won't be involved as much as you think, Ironhide. Elita One has said herself she's going to do a large part of the buffering, but she needs a mech on her side to help bridge the gap. She requested it be you by name. Do you really want to go down to her quarters and tell her no?"

Ironhide glared at them all, defeated. "Sometimes I hate you guys."

* * *

It was like one dark, horrible nightmare. Cybertronians didn't dream. But there were instances, often in between stasis lock and repairs, or even sometimes right before coming online after recharge, when the memory would replay random images, confusing the processor. Sometimes, after great trauma, the fear and horror of the experience would replay over and over in their minds until they could be brought fully online again. It was the closest thing a Cybertronian could get to a nightmare. It was the only thing Chromia could think of to describe what she felt.

First, there was confusion. There was a pull as the ground was ripped up under her feet. Chromia felt the suction and weightlessness as she was snatched into the air, into the belly of a hulking ship. Then, there was a weight, a pressure. And darkness. Chromia felt bodies below her, on top of her, packed tightly all together like sardines in a can. There was squirming and thrashing, cries of fear and panic ringing in her audios. It was impossible to move with so many bodies struggling around her and so much blackness.

After several minutes of trying to assess her situation, Chromia became aware of another sensation. Something hazy was moving in. Slowly but surely, something foreign was being introduced to her system. It was slowing her down, robbing her of her fear and her desperate need to get out. It permeated to her core like a sedative. After a while, everything was calm. No more screaming, no more thrashing bodies. Complacence replaced panic. With complacence came the fog.

At first, Chromia tried to resist it, but then she lost her will to fight. The haze took over, numbing her systems, slowing them down. It affected her thoughts, her memory, her consciousness. She drifted in and out over days, maybe weeks for all she could tell. Time was hard to keep track of with her processor so foggy. Her memories were short scraps of consciousness in which there was always more darkness. Dazed, still bodies all around her and more darkness.

Light broke into her vision like a rude awakening from long hibernation. It was still hard to think or even get her limbs to work properly. Chromia continued to drift in and out, her memory recorder only able to hold onto bits and pieces. She recalled hands grabbing her, dragging her along the floor. The next thing she remembered was that she had been sitting on the ground, cuffed, with several aliens speaking odd languages around her. There were small slivers of cognizance where Chromia managed to catch glimpses of the Autobot femmes. They were being sorted, divided, placed on different ships.

As the sedative wore off, Chromia began to recover her wits again. The restraints they had put on her were stasis cuffs. Her body didn't have much strength at the moment, but her mind was quickly sharpening. Before she could really get a good look at her surroundings, two bulky figures stood in her way, blocking out the light with their girth. Both were Xartinians. Chromia identified them by sight with their thick, green skin, yellow eyes and round, heavy physiques. They were near the size of an average Cybertronian. Most of the aliens in the hanger were, some even larger.

The two spoke in Xarnese as they walked by the collection of Cybertronian femmes lined up against the wall.

"Indeed, quite a collection," Galdamesh was saying, impressed.

"My lucky stars were aligned perfectly this time," Benadam nodded. He was quite pleased with his crew and his ship and was glowing with pride. Of course, he wouldn't have had so much to sell if it weren't for that tipoff from Spectre, but he kept that to himself. "I do have quite a selection to choose from. I'm sure you'll find a few to fit your purposes despite their size. I have one that I set aside especially for you if you want her."

Chromia warily watched them walk by as she fiddled with her stasis cuffs, testing their hold on her. They were in some sort of large warehouse with several docking bays on either side. Her fellow femmes were being separated and loaded onto different ships as random aliens bid on them and closed deals. Even if she managed to get out of her cuffs, Chromia suspected she wouldn't get too far in a place like this. But that still didn't stop her from trying.

"Chromia." A soft voice called to her as the smaller form of Twilight managed to slide in next to her.

Chromia looked at her. "Hey kid. How you doing? You still functioning okay?"

Twilight ignored the question. Her large, blue optics were full of fear. "Chromia, I'm scared. What's going to happen to us?"

Chromia forced a determined smile as she continued to fiddle with her stasis cuffs. "Just stick with me. I'll keep an eye on you."

If the base had been attacked a few days earlier, Chromia wouldn't have been as prepared as she was now. It was that Decepticon prisoner, ironically that would help her escape. The way that Deceptifemme picked the locks on her own cuffs gave Chromia the idea. She would never admit she was copying a Decepticon, but who could have predicted the idea would come in so handy so soon?

As subtly as she could, Chromia reached for a small compartment on her thigh where she had stashed a lock pick. While she manipulated her restraints she just happened to notice the Autobot symbol on her chest was no longer there. Not that it made a huge difference at the moment, but when one got used to seeing something day after day for a few million years, one tended to notice it missing. Chromia couldn't remember when her captors found the time to paint over her insignia. Nor did she have the slightest clue why they did so in the first place. She would tend to more pressing matters and wonder about it later.

Further down the warehouse, Benadam presented his great find to his colleague, hoping to inspire a profitable sale.

"She's a bit on the small side," Galdamesh said, not impressed at all.

She seemed even smaller the way this black and purple femme sank against the wall, a perfect picture of defeat.

"This one's special," Benadam insisted. He used the tip of his energy rifle to raise the femme's chin so Galdamesh could see the mark at her collar. "She's Decepticon."

"A broken Decepticon," Galdamesh argued. "She's too small and too listless. I can't use her." He turned away to continue to inspect the rest of the product.

"She's a fighting model," Benadam tried again as he quickly followed. "Don't let her size fool you. I can tell by her design, she was built to kill."

"No. I am sorry, my friend. I told you before. With Cybertronian females I must be very selective or I run risk of not getting my money's worth." Galdamesh stopped right in front of Chromia. It was the fire in her optics that caught his attention. "Now this one, I just may be able to do something with."

"You!" Benadam barked at Twilight. "What are you doing here? You're in the wrong group."

Twilight instantly flinched at the tone, but Chromia moved in front of her. "This one stays with me," she told him in Xarnese.

"You will go where I tell you to go, robot," Benadam shot back.

He went to reach for the small, yellow Autobot, but Chromia's hands were suddenly out of their stasis cuffs. She grabbed his arm in her vice-like grip, nearly piercing Benadam's thick, green hide. Glowing blue optics looking into horrified yellow eyes.

"I don't take orders from you, pirate," Chromia growled.

One swift kick and Benadam collided with the wall. Instantly, all armed personnel were congregating to the location of the rogue femme. Chromia was surrounded, several weapons pointed at her. She moved herself between Twilight and their captors, but they were backed against the wall. Unarmed and outnumbered, Chromia wasn't sure how she was going to get them out of this. But she certainly couldn't live with herself if she didn't put up a fight.

The fight, however, started without her. Two of the armed aliens fell forward when something shoved into them from behind. Leaping over the falling bodies, it became clear that Blitzangel had also picked her stasis cuffs. She ran a rampage through the crowd of captors. Arm blades crackling, Blitzangel tore a path through her armed foes, ripping at them almost faster than the eye could follow. There were cries of surprise, horror and pain as blades sliced through the metal of weapons and the flesh of limbs.

"The stun field!" Benadam shrieked. "Turn it on, now!"

There was an electronic whir from the walls. The Cybertronians in the area suddenly spasmed as the normal processes of their internal systems were disrupted by the field. As a self preservation reflex, their systems locked and shut down. Chromia, Twilight and Blitzangel all fell lifeless to the ground as if they were nothing but mechanical dolls.

"A very interesting weapon," Galdamesh commented as he looked at one of the guards who was screaming at his severed limb. Others were moving to help him.. During the entire attack, Galdamesh hadn't moved a muscle.

Benadam painfully pulled himself to his feet, holding his side where he had been kicked. He had probably cracked a rib. "It was developed a few glax ago for these specific life forms. As a hand-held weapon, it doesn't put them out for long. But this facility was built specifically for the handling of robots. A disruptor wave this size will put them out for a quarhex. That should give you plenty of time to transport them."

"Indeed," Galdamesh said, rubbing his chin and smiling. "This was quite a satisfying demonstration. I will take all three of them at the regular price we discussed."

"I'm not selling the small one, not at that price," Benadam said as his men were moving to put proper restraints on the femmes once more. "That type of model I would get top dollar for. If you want her, you'll have to come to the auction."

"Nonsense," Galdamesh insisted calmly. "I'm sure we can come to an agreement right here. We are old friends, after all. And we both know these other two are so violent..." He looked pointedly at a blood splatter on the wall. "There's no one else but me who would purchase them. I am giving you a handsome profit by paying as much as I am for merchandise no one else will buy. I am doing you a favor. Treat me in kind; sell me the smaller femme as well."

Benadam narrowed his cat-like eyes at him. "I know you, Galdamesh. I know you can turn a dunghill into gold with that business sense of yours. You have a plot cooking already so don't act like you are getting the short end of the deal. But you are right, you have always been an excellent customer. So I will offer this: 500 more a head and I will let you purchase the yellow one."

"300."

"You know I could get three times the price for that smaller one. 400 extra a head and I'll go no lower. Take it or leave it."

Galdamesh smiled and held out his hand. "I will take it."

"Good." Benadam shook his hand and then turned to those of his men who were uninjured. "Get these three loaded on his ship." He turned back to Galdamesh. "They're your problem now."

* * *

She didn't even try to disguise her approach as she drove up to the main gates of Iacon. As bold as anything, she transformed into robot mode right outside the front entrance, tapping her foot impatiently under the security camera. It took a few minutes, but the gates eventually opened for her, as she knew they would.

Beta stalked through the front gates, very unhappy by all appearances. She stormed past sentries who were confused by her presence, but stood down as they were given orders over their coms. Without a single wrong turn, she navigated the main Iacon tower, aiming for the control center. Elita intercepted her before she could reach her destination.

"Beta," she greeted neutrally. "It is good to see you."

"I'm only here for one thing," Beta said, ignoring her words. "Show me to Arcee and I'll be on my way."

Elita didn't move to comply. "We've lost many femmes," she said levelly. "There are so few of us left."

Beta stood toe to toe with her. Elita was slightly taller, but that didn't make the older femme stand down any. "Well if you had been more careful, like I had warned, this wouldn't have happened. If you had accepted my offer to bring everyone to my base, I would have kept you safe."

"You live down too deep, Beta. We would have been cut off from everything. You know Alpha Trion built that base for us, he wanted us there." Elita's voice rose in accusation. "If you had helped us build a better early warning system, none of this would have happened."

"If you had kept Arcee a second longer, SHE would be among the missing!" Beta roared back. "I'm through helping you, Elita! You don't listen! You revel in putting everyone in danger for... for THIS!" She motioned grandly to the base around them. "This is a deathtrap! It's a giant target of destruction! You let your femmes join the Autobot ranks and they're going to get picked off again! One by one until you're all dead!"

Elita stared her down. She had the look of a seasoned warrior who had been badly wounded in a deep place, but she had not lost any strength from it.

"Living in the dark, afraid of everything, even our own side, is no way to live. If we had gone back to Iacon before, this wouldn't have happened and they would all still be here."

"Only until the Decepticons started picking them off again," Beta shot back. "This is not the place for you."

A much larger body placed himself in between the two and Beta faced a massive red chest.

"This is the place as long as she wants it," Optimus Prime informed her.

Beta took a step back, but only so she could glare down the taller bot good and proper. Neither his bulk nor his station intimidated her. "You. What makes you think you have the authority to make decisions for anyone? When was the last time you even stepped foot on your own planet? Don't corrupt Elita's decisions with your own poor judgment. How can you even continue to carry the Matrix when you refuse to be here for your own people? If your creator could see you now-"

"Alpha Trion was not my creator," Optimus reminded her, calm but stern. "He was my modifier. And he isn't here."

Beta's face turned bitter. "Because he couldn't stay out of it, either. Where's Arcee? I'm taking her home."

As if conjured by the request, Arcee turned the corner, Hot Rod and Springer on either side of her. They were laughing and having a good time together. Unbeknown to her, Optimus Prime had sent a radio signal to her escorts to meet him at his location. They had thought nothing of it at the time and continued their light conversation.

The group had enjoyed a good time that day. The two young mechs had shown Arcee all the places she would need to know. They had even stopped at a firing range for a bit of sport. The mechs were surprised with Arcee's accuracy with a blaster. Little did they know, many days Arcee had nothing better to do than practice her skills with hopes of one day being able to use them in a real battle to defend her beliefs and her people.

All in all, Arcee could not remember having a better time. That is, until she turned the corner and froze. Beta saw and started toward her. Under her creator's gaze, the outgoing Arcee suddenly became very self-conscious and small.

"Arcee! Why did you not come home? Do you know how much you worried me?" Beta demanded.

Springer didn't like the way the older femme was talking to her. Hot Rod just stood there stupidly, shocked by Beta's anger. This didn't seem like the same femme he had met all those months before.

"I couldn't just leave them," Arcee said in a small voice. "After what happened to the base, they needed my help."

Beta grabbed her wrist. "Elita doesn't need any help running her team into extinction. She's doing fine on her own." She started dragging her creation down the hall.

"Wait," Arcee called, digging in her heels. "Wait. I want to stay."

Beta turned, her optics flashing. "You want to what?"

Arcee steeled herself, standing up to her creator for the first time in her life. "I want to stay. I want to help the Autobots. All of them. I want to be a part of this. I want to be a part of a team that means something. I don't want to hide in fear anymore. Please Beta, let me stay."

Beta clenched her jaw, appearing unmoved.

"You did it once," Arcee insisted. "You fought for something you believed in. You remember what it was like, to have a team, a family, all working for the same thing, for the right thing. Please, let me know what that feels like."

Beta's expression didn't change, but in the wake of Arcee's pleading face, she released her hold on the pink femme's wrist.

"You may die here if you stay."

"Then I die here," Arcee said.

"That is your choice, of course. You are your own femme. I have nothing more for you." Beta paused to glare at Springer and Hot Rod. "Just make sure you are staying for the right reasons," she said pointedly.

The old femme turned on her heel and left before Arcee could say anything else, before she could even tell her creator good-bye.

"Beta, wait," Elita One called after her. "Help us. I know you have the resources. Stay and help us find them. I know we can get them back if we try."

Beta paused for a second, but she didn't reply. Arcee quietly hoped she would stay. But the aged femme did not. She marched out of Iacon the way she had come and transformed to drive off into the distance, never once looking back.

* * *

Ironhide couldn't get out of the door fast enough. Several giggling feminine voices and even a few curious touches trailed after him.

"Bye, Ironhide!" high voices sang as he shut the door on them, looking as if he had just slammed the door on death itself. An entire bunker full of nothing but tittering, flirty femmes. Primus almighty, it was a frightening sight.

Ironhide cursed both Prime and Elita to the pit for the umpteenth time that day for making him the femme liaison. Because they trusted him, they said. Ironhide knew that was only part of the truth. What they really meant was that they knew Ironhide already had himself a femme and he was fiercely loyal to Chromia whether she was present at the base or not. This made him "safe" around the other femmes. That was the main quality they were looking for. The other femmes knew it, too. They knew he was "Chromia's mech" and they tittered and cooed over him, repeating his name in high, flirty voices because he wasn't interested in any of them.

Several other mechs had already told him with hearty slaps on the back how lucky he was for being able to see a room most were forbidden to enter. Ironhide thought they could all frag themselves as he stormed down the hall. Another thin silhouette was coming up toward him. Ironhide prayed it would walk on by and pay him no mind.

But it was he who called attention when he saw who it was.

"Firestar."

The orange femme stopped and gave him a careful smile. "Ironhide. How... how are you?"

He purposefully ignored what she was referring to. "Just got outta that hellhole full of chattering harpies." He tipped his head back toward the femme bunker. "They won't leave me alone, I swear!"

Firestar tried to suppress her grin. "They like you. You make them feel safe."

Ironhide grumbled something to himself.

Firestar's smile went away. "I'm sorry, Ironhide. I'm sorry she's gone. I miss her, too. Chromia was my best friend. I don't know what to do without her. I can't even imagine what you're feeling."

"That's because you've already given up," Ironhide told her frankly. "Maybe ya don't know Chromia as well as I thought you did. So let me tell you something: if there's any femme in creation sparked by Primus who could find her way back here, it would be Chromia. You gotta give that gal some time to work. She can't do it in only a few cycles. Be patient. She'll come back."

Firestar's strong facade suddenly crumbled faster than Ironhide saw it coming. Her lip quivered and then her arms were suddenly around him, her head pressed to his chest as she sobbed. It was something she had been longing to do for a while, but she had not been afforded that luxury. She had to stay strong for everyone else, for Elita who was in so much pain, for her sisters who had all lost so much. Even in front of Inferno, she couldn't bear to break. He was her friend, but he never knew what to do with a crying femme. It made him uncomfortable. Even in front of Ironhide, Firestar hadn't meant to show weakness, but once the dam began to crack, Firestar couldn't stop the flood.

Ironhide stiffened in her arms, but eventually relaxed. He momentarily glanced heavenward, silently asking his creator what he did to deserve this. Then he relented to his fate, putting his arms around the sobbing femme and holding her as long as she needed.

* * *

The days had been long and difficult. Elita wanted them to stop, but there was no end in sight. If she didn't have Optimus Prime she... well, she wasn't exactly sure it would make any difference sometimes. No, that wasn't right. He was there for her. He had been there for her right from the start. Physically, anyway. Just as he was now. After Beta came and went, Optimus stuck close to her. But the biggest problem was that "close" was the last thing she felt about him.

Elita watched him as he gazed out the large picture window of her quarters. Usually he just came in, asked her if she needed anything, lingered to be sure, and then left. After Elita's spat with Beta, Optimus didn't ask or excuse himself, he just made himself a constant presence in her vicinity until she was either ready to talk or she kicked him out. Usually, it was the latter. Elita didn't know how she should voice her concerns for whatever it was that was going on between them and there had been too many more pressing issues to keep her mind occupied. Optimus was acting like Beta's appearance added to Elita's stress, but she could care less what Beta was doing anymore. After the old femme had come and gone, it was actually a relief knowing she wouldn't be back.

That just left the issue before her, the one looking out her window. After talking with Beta and inspired by Arcee's declaration, Elita suddenly found herself in a chatty mood. It was time to meet this head on.

"You've been distant," Elita accused. She sat on the metal sofa, several paces stretching between her and the mech at the window.

Optimus didn't move for a few seconds before turning his head to look at her. "I am here for you, Elita."

"I know. You've said that several times already. More than were necessary, actually. The problem is, I don't feel like it's true. Not from the first moment I stepped foot on this base."

Optimus moved from the window. "What more can I do for you?"

Frustration bubbled up in her spark. She was the one pointing out the problem and now he was making it her responsibility to fix it, whether it was his intention or not. She felt like she couldn't win, no matter how she answered that question. It wouldn't fix her issue. Elita tried a different tactic.

"Do you still want to be in this relationship?"

Optimus Prime was flabbergasted. "What? Of course I do. Why would you ask me that?"

Elita stood up, irritated. "Why didn't you contact me when you came back to Cybertron? I was counting on you. I was under the impression that when you came back to lead the Autobots we would be getting my girls out of the darkness and back into Iacon. But then I find out you've been on Cybertron for over a breem and never once tried to contact us. Now that we've been forced here, you don't even look me in the optics when you talk to me. What am I supposed to think? I don't have any information. I don't know what's going on, Optimus. Tell me."

Optimus was quiet for a moment; his mask gave away nothing. Air hissed from his vents like a sigh and he strode over to her, really focusing on her for the first time. His heavy hands landed on Elita's shoulders and he pressed his forehead to hers.

"Elita," he said softly. "My spark, my joy. There is so much I would like to tell you, so very much. But I feel I do not have the capacity to express it."

Her body weakened a bit at his voice. Her spark fluttered at his touch. At last, he was really looking at her, really being present with her.

"What is it?" she begged. "Please tell me. I want to know; I want to understand you. Ever since you and Alpha Trion saved my life, I've noticed you look at me differently."

Optimus squeezed her a little more tightly. She was right. She usually was, his very perceptive femme. It was at the very brink of her spark's last light that Optimus had learned the truth from the mouth of Alpha Trion himself. He had learned the lie. A deception that the old bot had told both of them for so very long.

"Is it my power?" Elita pressed. "Is it the fact that I almost died for you? Is it that I could do it again whenever I chose? Does it seem like a horrible power to you?"

Optimus surprised her when he clutched her to his chest tightly in a full embrace. "Oh Elita, my Elita. Don't ever question. My affection for you runs so much deeper than that. I would love you whatever your power or form. No matter what happens to you, no matter how far apart we may be, my spark will always be drawn to yours."

It hurt so much that he could not tell her the full truth of his words. It was a truth even he had only known for a short period. How could he even begin to explain it to her? That time he had taken her to Alpha Trion, begging for her life ... the old bot had told Optimus their energy signatures would be a match to rejuvenate Elita's depleted life force because he had built Optimus that way- because he had built them both that way.

While Elita recovered, Optimus had pressed Alpha Trion for more information even though, deep down, he already knew the horrible truth. Elita One had not always been the name of his love. When Alpha Trion repaired the damaged Orion Pax and brought him online, the young bot was immediately sent out to face the murderer of his friends. In the meantime, Alpha Trion had returned to the energon storage facility and discovered the body of Orion's girlfriend, Ariel.

Alpha Trion meant for it to be a surprise. He would restore the young bot's love to him when he returned victorious from the battle. But it was not to be. While Alpha Trion could repair the body, the damage to the femme's memory systems was irreversible. She would come back online with no recollection of who she was or what had happened to her. No memory of the bot she loved. She was as fresh as if she had just stepped away from Vector Sigma again and Alpha Trion took it upon himself to make the decision to let her stay that way. He kept Elita a secret from Optimus Prime while he moved on to new adventures. Then Alpha Trion activated Elita in a new city to let her start fresh. It was to the old bot's surprise that he learned the two had found each other again, in love, with Optimus having no idea it was his old love who he had thought long dead.

To Alpha Trion, it seemed a good omen that he had done the right thing and he had no qualms with telling Optimus the whole story once the truth came out. He assumed Optimus Prime felt the same. He did not. Optimus felt betrayed by a bot he had been looking to for guidance all his professional life as the Autobot Leader. Now he was at a loss as to what to do with this information. He couldn't tell Elita. What good would it do her to know she had another life she would never remember? What would it help her to know she had survived such a horrible incident?

Alpha Trion had never understood the problem and that bothered Optimus most of all. From then on, the Autobot leader began to understand where the bitterness Beta held toward his old mentor was coming from. Alpha Trion was one of the wisest bots in all of Cybertron. He knew the great mysteries of the planet and the life of its inhabitats. It was possible he understood the mechanics of the very spark itself. But Alpha Trion knew not of love. The emotion would forever be a mystery to him.

Perhaps he knew this. Perhaps that was why, when the opportunity came, Alpha Trion had chosen to join Vector Sigma instead of remaining on Cybertron. Maybe Alpha Trion was looking for the next level of understanding because he was not finding it here.

"Please talk to me," Elita said softly in his arms. "Please tell me what weighs on you. Tell me what you are thinking so I can understand. If I can't understand, I'm left so many questions, so many doubts. They will drive me crazy."

Optimus pulled away, arms still loosely around her, so he could look her in the optics while speaking. "I am afraid I do not know what to say, but I am sorry my actions have been hesitant toward you and your soldiers. I know what you were expecting from me and I let you down. I am sorry. I'm sorry you were disappointed and I'm sorry it caused you to doubt my intentions for you. I am afraid I have very little explanation for my actions."

"I'll take what I can get," Elita said, a small smirk now on her lips.

Optimus tried to put his thoughts in order. "Since I have been on Cybertron, perhaps even before, I..." He paused to vent more air. "I have been without direction. Or perhaps that is not right. My officers have been pushing me to action - dealing with the Decepticons, transferring new troops to Earth - and I have been dragging my feet on all accounts. This includes your faction, Elita, but it is not a reflection of my feelings about you. I just wanted to make the right decision to keep everyone safe."

"You don't even feel a direction from the Matrix?" she wondered.

"No, quite the opposite. When I feel nothing from the Matrix, I move forward with my own choices. I'm certainly not bound completely to its will. I am receiving a message from the Matrix. One order and it is very clear: to wait. The Matrix wants me to do nothing. It wants me to wait for... something to come to us. That is all I can say."

"So what is to be done, then?"

Optimus gave a loose shrug, an action that better befit a younger bot. "I cannot tell an entire army to wait and do nothing. Especially with all that has been happening all around us. Something is in motion; we can all feel it and it is making everyone restless. I'm afraid all I can do right now is merely delay and let everything progress as it may. Nothing more can be done. Can you forgive me for that, dear one?"

Elita smiled and reached to kiss the chin of his face plate. "May I delay along with you, wherever it would lead? If that isn't too much trouble? And perhaps you can find the words to explain the way you look at me at a later time."

Optimus held her a little more tightly. "It will honor me if you do."


	7. Chapter 7: Killing Machines Part 1

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Rising Generations

Chapter Seven: Killing Machines Part 1

The restraints were more complex this time, heavier and stronger. They opened by remote control only. Galdamesh ordered the Cybertronians cuffed with their hands behind them instead of in front, grumbling about how Benadam didn't know how to hold a real fighter properly. Galdamesh had purchased four femmes in total from the trafficker. Chromia, Twilight and Blitzangel shared the holding area with Bayonette. She was a tall, leggy femme, but fierce and sharp in design. She was a fighter, like Chromia and the Deceptifemme. That didn't bode well for the type of destination they were traveling toward.

The holding area was without windows. Chromia had no idea where they were as she felt the ship land. Twilight remained close to her, almost connected to her hip. She was terrified, and rightly so. Some Cybertronians had been known to live comfortable lives on other planets. Chromia was certain this was not one of those planets. Bayonette sat on the other side of Twilight, speaking soft words to console her, words softer than Chromia knew how to speak. Bayonette was actually more gentle than her fierce design suggested.

Off in the corner, away from them, sat the Deceptifemme. She sat in listless silence, head down and taking no interest in the world around her. Chromia recalled how quickly the Decepticon had come to their aid, how easily she joined the fight, cutting through metal and flesh without conscience. Now back to this picture of dejection. What went on in that femme's processor?

Light spilled into the hold as the door slid open. A tall, blue alien with four arms and a thin frame marched authoritatively inside. "Alright, robots," he barked at them in Xarnese, even though he wasn't Xartinian himself. "Get up! Hurry now. We don't have all day. We've got a show to do."

Show? Chromia had a dark suspicion about what that meant as she got to her feet. She noticed the Deceptifemme watching them for a while before rising to follow, as if she wasn't sure what was going on. _Better get with the program and figure it out soon, _Chromia thought._ We're not in the war anymore._

The new stasis cuffs left the femmes with little more energy than what was needed to walk. There were several armed guards on either side as they were marched off a narrow ramp. Chromia only had a brief view of the city skyline before they were led into a building. It looked like they were on the planet Xartin, which wasn't surprising since they were probably purchased by that Xartinian who had been looking at them earlier. But that was the extent of Chromia's knowledge about the planet. She knew about the trafficking of Cybertronians, but her people were sold and employed for so many different purposes on so many different planets, she hadn't bothered to memorize which planet was most known for which sort of trade. Now she was wishing she had paid the topic better attention. It might have better prepared her for what was to come.

The group of four were led into a sterile room where an alien of unknown origin inspected them. He had eyes on the top of his head and orange, hairless skin that shined as if he were constantly sweaty. But he seemed quite well-versed on Cybertronian anatomy. He inspected each femme and scanned them with a device. Chromia guessed it was to determine their physical wellbeing, to make sure none of them were damaged in transit. The orange alien spent extra time on Blitzangel. His body language suggested he found her makeup and design just as curious as the Autobots femmes had when they discovered her.

Blitzangel didn't appear to enjoy the scrutiny at all. She was very uncomfortable having the alien inspect her. It made Chromia recall her reaction in the med bay. This femme had issues with others getting into her circuitry. There was nothing Chromia could do about it; she had to worry about her own Autobots. They needed to figure out where they were, what they were purchased for and, most importantly, how they were going to get back to Cybertron.

Once the femmes were properly inspected, Galdamesh stepped into the room. He was big, even for a Xartinian. Chromia knew a bit about his people. They were into intergalactic trade and communications. The planet Xartin had become a large hub for countless different peoples from all over the universe. Nearly 30 percent of the planet's current population was composed of foreigners from different worlds. The Xartinians themselves were large and bulbous with green skin, large cat-like eyes, and tufts of light green hair sprouting from their small heads. They were slow in a fight, but their hides were thick and their massive bodies were usually all muscle. Chromia was sure going through the Xartinian would not be the easiest route to take.

Galdamesh wandered down the line of femmes, eying each one, before he spoke to them in Xarnese.

"My name is Galdamesh," he announced. "As of now, you are my property and you will do as I will have you do. I am giving you a unique opportunity to represent your kind to the galaxy, to show the rest of creation the pride and the spirit of your people. Do well and you will be rewarded. Perform poorly and you may end up in the scrap heap."

"Perform what, exactly?" Chromia asked in his native language.

"Perform in the ring, of course." Galdamesh grinned at her. "You will have the opportunity to show the true violence and power of a Cybertronian. You will have your chance to make the rest of the universe truly fear you. Wouldn't you like that?"

Chromia frowned. She knew what he was asking wasn't really as grand as all that. "You run a fighting ring. You want to put us in your brawls so you can make money."

"Oh, it is much bigger than that," Galdamesh insisted. "My arena is broadcast, not just all over this world, but to many other planets ... other solar systems. If you are a true contender, you have the opportunity to be famous and very rich yourself, if you are up to the task."

Chromia just huffed. Ironhide knew up and down her opinions on fighting for money. She didn't feel inclined to share them with her new owner. It was obvious on her face she did not think highly of her situation.

Galdamesh ignored her negative attitude. They were all like that when they first came in, but the ring would change them. It would break them or truly make them alive; it was their choice.

"And you," he said, turning to Blitzangel. "A rare jewel like you ... I could make you queen of the ring if you show me more, much more, of what I saw earlier. What do you say?"

Blitzangel looked at him but said nothing, her expression neutral.

Galdamesh was annoyed. "You may not like me, but I own you and you will respect me. Answer my question, Decepticon."

"I don't understand you," Blitzangel said in Cybertronian.

"What?" Galdamesh asked, wondering if he heard right. "You will look at me and speak up when you address me."

"She said she doesn't understand your language," Bayonette said.

"Nonsense," Galdamesh insisted, getting in Blitzangel's face. "A Cybertronian can pick up any language he hears. I know this for a fact."

"I don't understand you," Blitzangel insisted again in Cybertronian when he spoke to her from too near.

"You fight for me," Galdamesh said slowly in broken Cybertronian.

Chromia couldn't help but be a bit impressed. Cybertronian was a hard language to learn with an organic's tongue. Even with fluent knowledge of the language, it was difficult to speak. Most never bothered to learn it, even those who did business with Cybertron, because its people had the ability to learn any language. Well, all of its people aside from this Decepticon, it seemed.

"Maybe her language adapter was damaged," Twilight said, a bit louder than she meant to. "Patch probably didn't think to repair it before she went into the holding cells."

Galdamesh's keen hearing caught it all. He understood Cybertronian far better than he could speak it.

"So, you Autobot prisoner?" he asked Blitzangel in simple Cybertronian. "You have chance for revenge, yes?"

Blitzangel didn't answer.

Galdamesh was done with them for the moment. "Lock them up," he told the guards. "Prepare them for tonight. We'll let them jump in with both feet."

* * *

Chromia could hear the crowd long before she saw them. The stadium above her must have been packed. Their cacophony of cheers, screams and hoots rumbled down to the lower levels. They were ready to be entertained. They just might get it, Chromia thought as she clutched the mace in her hands. Before she was put on the platform, she was given a moderate variety of weapons to choose from. No firearms. Pity. She had a hard time feeling comfortable with anything else. But the mace spoke to her. She liked the balance of it and its mean spikes. If she had to fight without her trusty blaster, this would have to do.

At the last moment, they insisted on lightly riveting a shallow plate to her chest with the Autobot insignia painted on it. At first, Chromia was confused. They had removed her original insignia when she was purchased. Why, now, did they want to put a sloppy, false one on her before the match? The platform rose toward the arena and when Chromia saw her opponent, she began to figure it out.

"You all have the privilege to witness a very rare sight," a voice announced over the speakers above the crowd. "From the planet Cybertron, behold, a war millions of years in the making. For the first time ever for your entertainment, Autobot against Decepticon!"

Chromia saw her opponent rise from the other platform across the ring. It was the Deceptifemme, Blitzangel. Now it all made sense. The Autobots and the male Decepticons both had treaties with the Galactic Alliance. That allowed them full use of the space warp gates, but also made the trafficking of either faction illegal while they were still at war. This was done mostly in the fear that pulling marked soldiers from Cybertron would cause their civil war to spread to other planets as well. No one could rip up a planet like the Cybertronians could.

However, this didn't stop the trafficking of Cybertron's people. Neutrals were still fair game and traded openly at any market. Soldiers were still smuggled from Cybertron when possible. All they had to do was remove their faction insignia, like they did with Chromia, and she would be an instant neutral. Fair game. They could mark her as an Autobot for the match as long as it obviously looked fake.

For the Deceptifemme, it didn't matter, symbol or not. Female Decepticons were not protected under any treaty. Blitzangel didn't have a prayer either way.

"Witness this ancient rivalry," the announcer continued above them. "See enemies of this violent race battle it out TO THE DEATH!"

The crowd roared and Chromia almost dropped her mace. This wasn't just a fighting ring; they were in the death matches. How they managed to stay legal in this day and age was a mystery, but a few still existed. Chromia glared up at the main box at the head of the ring where Galdamesh sat. No doubt he had fat pockets and was more than willing to share with the politicians to keep him in business. This crowd had come to see blood of many different colors spilled and only one of the femmes on the field was expected to come out alive.

Blitzangel had not reacted to the announcement or the crowd. She still didn't understand a word of the native language. She also showed no aggression at seeing Chromia. These spectators were going to be very disappointed, very fast.

"Can you fly us out of here?" Chromia called. The wire mesh around the stadium was high, but not high enough for a jet.

Blitzangel shook her head. "I cannot transform. They put some sort of blocker in my programming."

Chromia frowned as she looked around for another way out. The ring was massive. It could house a good many fighters. The seats were full of many colors of lifeforms, all cheering and roaring for them to fight. Chromia's sensors told her the thick, sturdy fence separating them from the area was charged with a high voltage field, designed to keep in all manner of lifeforms. No doubt it was charged with something nasty specifically suiting Cybertronians. She hated to admit it, but the two of them looked trapped.

When it became obvious the two femmes weren't going to fight each other, the tone of the crowd changed. They booed and flung food at the electrified fence. Neither Chromia nor Blitzangel paid them any mind. Up above, surveying it all, Galdamesh was not pleased. He had a sold-out crowd at this fight and two warriors refusing to comply. He would have sworn the Decepticon would jump at the opportunity to take on one of the Autobots. Perhaps he had not read them as well as he had hoped.

"The crowd is getting angry," Largo, his ring supervisor said to him. Largo wasn't Xartinian, but Galdamesh could hardly run his business without him. Funny that he had won the alien in a bet. Largo's people were not under any treaty so they could be bought and sold freely, without legal action. But the alien really knew how to run a ring. Galdamesh was fortunate to have him. "What would you like me to do, Lord Galdamesh?"

Galdamesh was quiet for a moment, thinking back on his first encounter with the femmes. He needed to do something quickly or there would be an entire arena of customers demanding their money back and his reputation would be tarnished.

"Yes, I have it. Largo, this is our new plan."

* * *

Blitzangel and Chromia stepped back as the ground beneath them split in two. Another, much larger platform rose up as the floor of the arena opened. Neither femme could identify what it was that appeared before them. It was yellow, gelatinous and very, very large. It took a while for Chromia to realize it was also alive. The pile of ooze slowly teetered this way and that as if trying to keep its balance. The femmes weren't sure what to do with it until the creature gave a deep bellow as it was zapped with electricity. Suddenly, the ooze was active.

"So they want us to fight this now," Chromia surmised. "Pathetic. I can sit here all day. I'm not fighting-"

Blitzangel dashed toward the creature.

"Hey!" Chromia called after her. "What are you doing?"

The Deceptifemme was already gone, close enough to the girth of the creature to leap on it. The alien life form seemed interested in something else on the ground. Chromia had no idea why Blitzangel decided to go crazy and attack it. The purple femme sliced at a dripping limb with her arm blades and the monster howled in rage. It was then that Chromia saw what the creature was reaching for on the ground. It was Twilight. Chromia's energon boiled when she saw the small, yellow femme chained to the ground near the monster. She had no way to escape the danger. Blitzangel had been trying to protect her.

The creature raised a long, squid-like limb to swipe at the Deceptifemme. It looked like a pile of a soft gooey substance until, at the last second, it solidified itself into three claws. Blitzangel tried to dodge out of the way, but the tips caught her. The strength of the monster spun her around as it slashed at her chest. Blitzangel rolled several feet, her wings making a high scraping sound as she slid along the metal floor of the arena. She jumped back to her feet, mostly undamaged save for the three long claw marks now adorning her chest.

Meanwhile, Chromia ran to the aid of her fellow Autobot, mace in hand. Twilight was struggling against her chains, but they were too thick to break. The creature was coming for her again.  
"Chromia!" Twilight screamed.

"Hold on, I'm coming!" Chromia charged, swinging the mace with all her might at the living blob several times bigger than herself. The gelatinous monster simply absorbed the force of the blow, then began absorbing the weapon as well.

The mace slowly sank into its body. Chromia tried to tug it out, but she had to abandon it before she was sucked in as well. Unarmed, Chromia opted to run to Twilight's side. Maybe she could help her get free. Both struggled against the restraints as the creature loomed over them, making a horrible noise.

"Chromia, just go!" Twilight begged. "Don't worry about me!"

"Don't be stupid! I'm not leaving you!"

The creature raised a massive claw to tear them apart. There was a purple blur and the snap of electrified blades. The chains were cut and Chromia grabbed Twilight, yanking her out of the way as the heavy limb came down. Blitzangel dove in the opposite direction, quickly jumping to her feet again. The creature seemed more intent on the two Autobot femmes at the moment. She had the element of surprise if she wanted to use it.

But what good would it do if they won this fight? Their captor - their owner - could make them all do it again any time he wanted. She had a figure out a way to prevent that from happening.

Blitzangel charged. Even without her alt mode, she had speed on her side. She ran up the back of the creature, feet moving too quickly to be sucked in. It didn't escape her notice that the creature only seemed to be hurt by electricity. Leaping to the top of its head, Blitzangel slashed at the creature's eyes with her blades. It howled as Blitzangel rolled off, now effectively catching its attention.

The enraged monster slithered after her, moving faster than she would have thought possible. It bellowed after her as it chased the femme around the arena. The crowd roared as she fled. Blitzangel was not deaf to their cries amid the excitement. She reached the edge of the ring and turned to face the creature. It swung at her and Blitzangel charged her blades, swinging as hard as she could. The creature jerked back, but its limb was mostly severed. It hung by a thin stream of ooze before finally breaking off. The blob reared back in pain as the crowd cheered. Blitzangel picked up the heavy limb and threw it at the fence. The translucent flesh sizzled as energy coursed through it. The crowd went insane, loving every second.

The monster attacked with its remaining claw. Blitzangel dodged, charging her blades to full power, directing more of her energy into the blades until they glowed hotly even in the light of day. The creature reared back in fear of the energy as Blitzangel slashed at its face. In its haste to retreat it backed right into the fence, bellowing as energy surged through its body. There was a horrible burnt smell in the air as the creature shuddered. Then it fell forward with a heavy thud, burn marks criss-crossing its back. The crowd went wild.

Blitzangel glared up at the main box where Galdamesh sat. She wanted to have a talk with him.

* * *

She was brought into his office, stasis cuffs on high in case she tried anything. The Xartinian sat behind his desk, a guard on either side of him, looking amused.

"So you want to talk business, do you?"

Blitzangel didn't understand his words, but she knew his tone.

"I made you lots of money today," she spoke in slow Cybertronian so he would understand. "All your customers left happy. I can continue to make you money. I can fill your stadium every time."

Galdamesh was intrigued that she, of all the Cybertronians he purchased, would willing to play his game. "What do you want?" he asked in his limited Cybertronian.

"The small Autobot ... keep her out of the ring and I will fight for you."

Galdamesh rubbed his chin. "I make money from her, too. Why keep her out?"

Blitzangel took a step closer. "Because they won't come to see her. They'll come to see me. There has to be some other job she can do for you within your organization that doesn't put her in the ring."

The Deceptifemme had a point. Galdamesh knew he could only put a cute character in jeopardy a few times before it would start getting old. And he could only let her get torn up in the ring once before the machine was no good. If he could get some cooperation from this Cybertronian, it might be worth it. He would try it out.

"Yes. You fill seats, Autobot does not fight."

Blitzangel nodded. "Deal."

* * *

Sunstreaker skulked through the halls, his brother at his tail. Mirage followed as well. They had just returned from a scouting mission within Decepticon territory. All the Autobot commanders were trying to figure out the Decepticons' current status. First they were on high alert, then Megatron was sending out search parties. Now, it seemed like they were slowly going back to business as usual. The original cause of so much chaos was still completely undetermined, but after speaking with Elita One, the best guess was Deceptifemmes. They seemed to be quite busy all around lately. However, the location of their base and the size of their forces were still a mystery. Sunstreaker's team didn't have anything groundbreaking to report to counter that.

Just as well, then, that Sunstreaker didn't plan on writing a report.

"Uh, central command is that way," Mirage said, pointing down the hall in the opposite direction from where Sunstreaker was headed.

"Good, have fun with it," Sunstreaker said. "I'm going to my room."

The yellow Autobot still wasn't through with his moping stage. Sometimes he could be cajoled out by his brother to play around, but it was always short-lived. Sideswipe did his best to keep the two of them occupied. When Sunstreaker's processor was busy he had fewer opportunities to brood.

"Come on, bro, mission's not over," Sideswipe urged. "Maybe if we go up there, Prime will have something else for us to do."

Primus bless Sideswipe's spark. He knew Sunstreaker didn't want to be idle. Unfortunately, all it was doing lately was making Sunstreaker sick of looking at him. If Sideswipe didn't give him some space soon, he just might let off steam on his brother instead.

"Sunstreaker?"

He turned when a different voice called his name, unused to the higher, feminine pitch. His optics widened. "Rou—Roulette!"

Mirage turned as well. A female Autobot, mostly purple and yellow, charged in their direction, throwing herself at Sunstreaker. She flung her arms around his neck as he tried to catch himself before they both fell over.

"It is you!" Roulette squealed, squeezing him tighter. "I never thought I would EVER see you again! But look, here were are together again! It must be fate! Oh! It is so good to see you, my love! I have missed you so!"

"My love?" Mirage mouthed at Sideswipe.

Sideswipe held up a finger, signaling he would explain in a moment.

"I just got out of the med bay," the femme continued without stopping for any kind of reply. "I was so damaged, sweetspark. I've been there for days. Why didn't you come see me?"

"Uh... I didn't know you were here," Sunstreaker said, looking bewildered. "And I've been out on a mission."

"That's okay, I forgive you," she gushed. "What's important is that we are together now! Let's promise never to break up again!"

The look on Sunstreaker's face said he wasn't willing to make such a vow, but Roulette ignored it. "I have to go and report in to Elita that I've been released. Did you know my sister is missing, baby?"  
"Bayonette?" Sunstreaker suddenly looked sincere. "Oh, I'm sorry."

"I know! I'm so devastated!" Roulette's voice did not sound as sincere. "Without her, I just don't know what I'm going to do. You will be with me, Sunstreaker, won't you?"

"Well, I kinda have other things I have to do..." Sunstreaker tried.

"How can you leave me?" Roulette demanded. "You don't know how it feels to lose someone you care so much about!"

Sunstreaker gave a pained expression and his tone softened. "Look, I have to go submit my report, but I'll find you later, okay?"

That brightened the femme right up. "Oh baby, it will just be like old times again! I will see you soon, my spark's love."

Sunstreaker gave her a weak smile as she hugged him once more and continued on her way. Mirage waited until she was long gone before speaking.

"Who was that?"

"Roulette," Sideswipe said. "One of Streaker's many flavors of the week."

"Only this one left a bad taste in my mouth." Sunstreaker frowned. "Curse my luck to the pit, how did she find me so fast?"

"Are we going to have to move again?" Sideswipe wondered.

"Move?" Mirage said. "What are you talking about?"

Sunstreaker grabbed his shoulders. "Listen, you don't understand, okay? That femme is fragging nuts! Seventh level of the pit insane!"

"So what?" Mirage said. "You just run away whenever she shows up? Can't you be a mech and just break up with her?"

"I've tried!" Sunstreaker shot back. "Primus, I've tried! The femme doesn't listen to me! She thinks we're destined to be together for some reason. Did you know she tried to force me into spark bonding with her? After the first week? The first WEEK!" He shook Mirage for emphasis. "I gotta make sure she doesn't find me again! Come on, Sideswipe, we need to come up with a plan."

Sideswipe, happy his brother was finally worried about something else, merrily followed him down the hall, already coming up with hackneyed ideas for their new escapades.

Mirage just watched them go. "She's not the only crazy one."

* * *

Bumblebee came out of Optimus Prime's office just as Elita One walked in. They halted, toe to toe, trying not to collide.

"Oh! Bumblebee, sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"No, I wasn't watching, either," Bumblebee chuckled with a shrug. "I'm guessing you don't know where Prime went either then?"

"Oh? He's not in there?" Elita easily peered over the much shorter Autobot to see the office was indeed vacant.

"I'll see where he went," Bumblebee volunteered. He sent out a ping through the system for Prime's whereabouts. The location that returned to him was a bit unexpected.

Optimus was outside the main tower, in an area away from the base's main facilities. He and his cohort had found an old, dilapidated court and were playing with a glowing orb that floated above the ground. Without many other light sources, the yellow ball cast its glow over Optimus Prime as he tried to keep it away from the shorter form of Hot Rod. The orb was built specifically for the game. It would hover in the palm of any Cybertronian who went to grab it. If another hand got too close to it, it would immediately attach to that one instead. That was how one stole the ball from the opponent.

At the moment, Optimus was doing his best to keep the orb from Hot Rod, but the shorter Autobot was faster than he looked. After a few good fake swipes, Hot Rod managed to steal the ball and took off down the court. There was a ring at the end. Hot Rod readied himself for a shot. He had to re-polarize his hand to get the glowing ball to shoot off in the direction it was aimed. Optimus raced after him, intent on ruining his shot. Hot Rod twisted out of the way and shot the ball. It flew cleanly through the ring, a point for Hot Rod.

The young Autobot smirked at his leader. "Nice try, Optimus, but you gotta do better than that to beat me."

"It appears I do," Optimus agreed as Hot Rod ran to get the ball. "I'm quite surprised. I didn't think anyone knew how to play anymore."

Hot Rod picked up the orb. "Back when I lived with the neutrals, HaloSphere was all we had to do down there." He made a big show of tossing the orb around: over his head, behind his back, between his legs.

Optimus Prime recalled those days when there wasn't much else for him to do but play ball, either. Back when he was a different bot. The only one who could ever keep up with him was Dion. That bot could make any shot he took. Even as he twisted through the air, arm bent behind his back, the orb went through the ring every time. It was his signature move. It was the one thing the young Orion Pax could never learn.

He turned and finally noticed they had spectators for their game.

"Looks like you two are having fun," Elita said in mild amusement.

Optimus shrugged. "We found the halosphere in a storage locker. We thought we would try it out." He paused. "Is there something that you need?"

Elita motioned to the yellow Autobot at her side. "I believe Bumblebee had more pressing matters for you first."

The small Autobot smiled almost apologetically as he held out the data pad in his hand. "The final roster for the Earth transfer. Ultra Magnus said I should follow you around until you sign it."

Optimus vented some air as he looked over the list. It seemed he could avoid the issue no longer. He signed his authorization. Bumblebee took it back, but stayed, looking like there was something else on his processor. "Any chance I could be on the next list, Prime?"

Optimus patted his shoulder. "When everything has settled down and I have things in order up here I will look into transferring you back, old friend. That's a promise."

Bumblebee nodded and Optimus knew he would hold him to that promise. The yellow Autobot turned to report back to Ultra Magnus that he now had the green light to make preparations for the transfer.

Elita watched him go. She had known Bumblebee almost as long as Optimus. He was a good friend to the Autobot leader and she was happy Optimus had him. Especially during times like these. It surprised her that Bumblebee seemed eager to go back to the organic planet he had already been stranded on for so long. She might have to ask about that sometime.

Hot Rod checked his internal time clock when an alarm went off in his systems. "Oops, I got a shift starting." He tossed the ball to his leader as he ran off. "Later, Optimus. I'll see you for a rematch."

Elita watched him go, amused. "You seem to have a special attachment to that young Autobot, Optimus. It surprises me."

Optimus tossed the sphere from one hand to the other while gazing after Hot Rod. "He reminds me quite a bit of a young bot I used to know." He then turned his attention to Elita. "And what may I do for you?"

"I was just curious to see what you were up to." She took the orb from his hands. "I don't think I've seen you just having fun for quite some time."

Optimus chuckled. "Did you enjoy watching the game?"

Elita smirked. "Well, I enjoyed watching you block like you were fresh off the assembly line."

Optimus tipped his head, intrigued. "Oh really? Care to show me how it's done?" He remembered Ariel, too. She had not been one to trifle with on the court. Optimus recalled the three of them playing all night sometimes, never wanting it to end. For a moment, Optimus wondered if there was any chance she could one day remember.

Elita crouched, halosphere in hand. "I think I could teach you a thing or two."

Optimus loomed over her, arms out, ready. "First one to ten points wins."

* * *

Blitzangel dodged another barrage of laser fire. The electrified nets were removed for this match and replaced with reflector glass to protect the audience from the weaponry. It was also a nice surface to rebound from. Blitzangel bounced off the glass and flew at her opponent, blades poised to strike. The alien in the ring with her today was infused with cyborg technology. He was allowed projectile weapons and any other tricks and gadgets his body housed. Blitzangel was not. It made for an interesting fight, but only because Blitzangel's job was to make it interesting.

If she had been organic, maybe fighting a cyborg would prove more of a challenge. But steel against flesh was not an even match. Aside from the first fight, all of Blitzangel's opponents had been sentient life forms. Thus far she had beaten every one of them. Galdamesh had informed her that after this match, he was going to pitch her against larger opponents and more of them. Blitzangel cared not. Let him bring in whatever he wanted her to fight. She preferred it in the ring: she felt alive. The second she saw her opponent she could feel Shockwave's programming start up and her body would jump into action.

She toyed with the cyborg for the most part, letting him chase her around the ring with laser fire, allowing the crowd to get riled up and get their money's worth for a good, long fight. Blitzangel knew the timing of the ring. She knew when she had been toying with her opponent too long and it was time for action before the crowd caught on. Now was the time to put away another win.

The cyborg wasn't fast enough for her blades. His robotic implants made him stronger, but the flesh attempting to communicate with the metal actually slowed him down. Blitzangel cut through the robotic arm at the elbow, dismembering the energy rifle. The alien screamed as blood and motor fluids splattered the femme and dribbled onto the ground. Blitzangel had miscalculated. She assumed the arm was completely metal. She didn't realize there was still organic matter inside. Either way, the match was going to end with a wound like that.

But the alien was not finished. He pointed his other metallic arm at her and shot a small wire at the purple femme. It magnetized to her chest and Blitzangel felt a jolt of electricity shoot through her, causing her muscle cables to spasm before she could slice it off with a blade. The cyborg attacked, but Blitzangel ducked his kick. She grabbed the flying foot and spun him around. Another slice and the other arm was severed at the shoulder. This limb was completely robotic. The alien didn't feel any pain, but now he had nothing else to fight with. Blitzangel held the limb in her hand, swinging it around. The crowd was loving it.

Knowing he had no way to fight back now, the cyborg alien lowered his head in defeat. Blitzangel threw the robotic limb over the protective glass and into the crowd as she was announced the winner. The alien gaped at losing his arm as someone's souvenir. They were probably expensive. That's what he got for trying to take her on.

Blitzangel left the ring even as the crowd cheered for more. Medics were running to the loser to tend to his arm. The femme caught sight of Twilight on her way inside. The little femme was now working up in the expensive box seats, serving Galdamesh's more wealthy clients. Being served drinks by a female Cybertronian was an extravagance very few could enjoy anywhere. It was an extra treat that the high society elite happily paid extra for. From what Blitzangel understood, Twilight was also good at her job, keeping everyone happy. Keeping her out of the ring made Blitzangel happy. Galdamesh could schedule her for two or three fights a day. She didn't mind at all.

A few smaller aliens scuttled around her as she came inside. They quickly sprayed her with a solution that cleaned off the blood and oil, then checked her gears for damage. Blitzangel had a hard time with that part. She didn't like anyone poking around her body for any reason. Even the long slash marks on her chest from the first fight were still there. Any superficial damage was left the way it was for her own comfort. She didn't care what she looked like on the surface if it meant no one would touch her. So far, she hadn't received major damage in any of her fights. Blitzangel was a bit proud of that.

Chromia didn't share her pride. The blue Autobot femme glared at her return from behind the bars of her cell.

"You enjoy this, don't you?" she spat as Blitzangel walked by. "Just like a Decepticon. You would probably kill them if they let you."

"Chromia, please," Bayonette sighed. "We're all stuck here having to do this. You're not helping. And she was the one keeping Twilight out of the ring while you didn't do anything about it."

Chromia shot her a look stating she would have done plenty if she had been afforded the opportunity. "You're also forgetting she's the reason we're all here in the first place. We lost our home, we're scattered across the universe and it IS legal to kill any one of us in this arena, Bay. I don't think you're really seeing this in the right perspective."

Bayonette kept any extra thoughts to herself. Her turn was up in the ring. She was allowed out of her cell and the tall femme walked calmly toward the platform. No extra weapon was needed for this femme. There was a top knot on her head of braided wire. It looked more like a fashion statement, but Bayonette could remove it and use it as an energy whip. And she was very good at it. Chromia had no doubt the femme would return victorious.

They all had been winning so far. Cybertronians were a tough race to beat for organics. But Chromia knew the flow of the ring as well as Blitzangel did. They would eventually pit them against stronger opponents and multiple adversaries to make the match more exciting. If any of them lost their spark as a result, it was merely money in Galdamesh's pocket. Death matches always paid more. If he had his way, the only way any of them would leave here would be in a scrap heap. Chromia had to figure out how to outsmart him. She had to get them home.

As Bayonette went into the ring, Chromia went back to glaring at the Deceptifemme in the cell across from hers. The fights were broadcast on a screen down below so the ring attendants could watch. Chromia had carefully viewed every one of Blitzangel's fights. The femme was fast and she didn't fight like any Cybertronian Chromia had seen before. That Decepticon blood lust was clear in her actions in the ring, even though she was ordered not to kill the other contenders. It was probably the only thing keeping them alive.

When the fight was over and the excitement wore off, however, the other part of Blitzangel shone through. Left in her cell, she would just sit in the corner, knees pulled up, back to the world. It was not unlike how she had acted when under the Female Autobots' guard. She sat under the small window of her cell and just looked at the ground.

Violent and listless. Chromia had no idea how to read this femme. Bayonette was right; she did save Twilight in the ring and was sticking her neck out to keep her out of it. But why? Why did she care?

"I don't get you," Chromia mumbled to herself. "I don't get you at all."

* * *

It was time to quit the search, even if Megatron didn't want to admit it. All his efforts had been fruitless. He was wasting resources without results. Even with the help of Soundwave, now repaired, hunting down the Deceptifemme faction wasn't easy. It took quite a while for the communications specialist to recover. The damage to his spark was extensive. Shockwave had had to administer a special therapy to help it heal. Even with Soundwave's report on what had happened to him and where he had been kept, all led to dead ends.

The tunnels were hard to navigate, especially with most of the Decepticons so large. Rumble and Frenzy found the site, but it had been abandoned with no other leads on where to look. Megatron was not happy with the news that there were still Deceptifemme survivors down below... that Spectre was still alive. But there was nothing he could do about it now. She was not foolish enough to try to face his army when her forces were so small.

It was time to put it behind him and get back to business as usual. His seekers were getting bored and mopey. Megatron knew restless seekers did not make for a happy army. They had a habit of affecting the morale of everyone else. It was time to put them to use. It was time for another energy raid.

"Lord Megatron. Again, I advise you to reconsider and put our resources toward the space warp gate," Shockwave insisted as he trailed down the hall behind Megatron.

"As I told you before, Shockwave, Megatron does not repair what he has purposefully damaged. We are not the Autobots. We do not kowtow to others for the sake of space relations; we make our own profits as we see fit."

"So you merely wish to do business on your own terms? That is acceptable," Shockwave conceded. "We can build our own warp gate to continue our trade. If we retrieve the Constructicons from Earth-"

"Shockwave," Megatron interrupted. "I will not say it again! There will be no space warp gates leading to Cybertron! I will not allow it!"

"Lord Megatron, you cannot possibly still believe something is out there, looking for Cybertron. It's... superstitious.. illogical..."

Megatron turned and looked Shockwave in his single, blinking optic. "Then why won't you say its name then if you do not believe?"

Shockwave was silent and Megatron turned to be on his way. The purple Decepticon watched him leave, frustrated at his own hesitance. It was burned into his processor, into every Cybertronian, to fear this myth. It was always recited in hushed circles when the subject of gods and monsters arose. But it was just a story; it had to be. Cybertron had existed for millions of years without any proof of the existence of such a being. Surely, if it existed they would have seen it by now. A giant being hellbent on nothing else but finding their planet would certainly not take this long to discover them.

Logic had to win out. "Nothing that horrible could exist," Shockwave repeated to himself, over and over again. There could be no such thing. There was no such thing as Unicron.

* * *

In the depth of space there once was an asteroid, skulking through the vastness, seemingly aimless ... but it was not so. Before its demise, it had purpose, direction. It steered through the cosmos on a specific path, slowly but intentionally, seeking out new worlds for its master. It seemed like natural space rock on the outside, but inside it was very unnatural.

Now, those insides had been blown across the stars. Now its metal parts were aimless and its connection to its host power source severed. But the host still found it, for it was still a part of itself. A deep shadow lurked through the darkness of space and came upon it. Many times larger than the asteroid, the circular metal mass was as large as a planet. It opened a hatch in the front, like a mouth with its triangular teeth drawing in the remains.

The shrapnel was consumed and the information gathered by the asteroid assimilated into the host's processor. Intruders had been on board. They had metal bodies and sharp wings. The asteroid had scanned them when they went inside and now the floating planet had their schematics: two seekers of nearly identical design, and one completely different. The sentient floating planet thought it over. He could work with that.

Using parts from his own body, the planet began to structure three forms.

* * *

The place was a dive. It was seedy, dark and dirty with questionable clientèle. Devcon much enjoyed coming here when he was passing through this part of the galaxy. It was his kind of place. It was also surprising the people one could run into in places like this. People such as his current board game partner, who he hadn't seen in quite a while.

Not that it was easy to see him anyway. His opponent was wrapped in cloth from head to toe with a hood to cover his face. That was the way he preferred to get around and Devcon was not one to judge.

"I think I've got you," Devcon said as he moved his piece.

His opponent eyed the board carefully. "We shall see." He slid one of his own pieces forward, countering Devcon's strategy.

The screen at the back of the room caught his attention as he watched Devcon plot his next move.

"What do you think of those games on Xartin? A couple of neutral femmes fighting in the ring. You don't see that every day."

"No, you don't," Devcon agreed as he began his new strategy. "Neutral femmes seem to look for more domestic jobs. I doubt they are doing it of their own volition.

"They've got a Deceptifemme up there, too, I understand." There was a smirk behind the hood as he watched Blitzangel's match on the screen. "I think I'll be dropping by to see it for myself. Sounds like fun."

"I would have thought you've had enough of Xartin," Devcon said.

His opponent moved his piece forward. "What can I say? I'm a sucker for nostalgia."

"And for punishment. You should choose a side. The life of a neutral is a pretty harsh one here in space. Why don't you take an Autobot insignia, like me? You'd be surprised what respect it gets these days. Plus, you would be protected under the treaty."

Yellow optics peered out from under the hood. "I stopped choosing sides a long time ago."  
Devcon took his turn, the winning move. "My game."

His bandaged opponent stood up. "So it is." He threw a few credits on the table. "To pay for the drinks, as agreed. I need to get going."

Devcon nodded as he left. "You watch yourself, Drift."

Behind the hood, a metal smirk. "I always do," Drift said to himself.


	8. Chapter 8: Killing Machines Part 2

Author's Notes: I feel like it's been too long since I've thanked everyone publicly for the support I've been shown for this fic. I really appreciate those who take time to read and especially those to take the time to let me know they've enjoyed the story. If it it's just once and it's not very long (though I ADORE long, thought out reviews). I just want to express my thanks to everyone who has supported me thus far and I hope I can continue to keep you entertained.

Rising Generations  
Chapter 8: Killing Machines Part 2

"Swindle," Galdamesh said in greeting as the Decepticon's familiar face appeared on his vid screen. "I was not expecting a personal call from you. Is there a problem with my order?"

"No," Swindle confirmed. "Your language adapter has been procured and will be shipped shortly."

Galdamesh leaned back in his chair, pleased. It was a present for his new Queen of the Ring. He was tired of always speaking limited Cybertronian to her. With the money she had been making him lately, Blitzangel had earned it.

"Excellent."

"What I wanted to discuss with you," Swindle continued, "is the femme you purchased this for."

Galdamesh frowned slightly, suspicious. "What about it?"

"This femme ... did you know she once served directly under our Lord Megatron? In fact, he considered her his personal property."

"Until she ran away?"

"No," Swindle said with a smirk. "She was stolen."

The frown grew on Galdamesh's face. That was not good news. He had no knowledge of how the trafficker Benadam acquired the Cybertronians in the first place. Even if Benadam's methods were completely legal (and they probably were not), the Decepticon leader Megatron had a reputation for not adhering to galactic law. He would not cede to a mere certificate of ownership if he thought Galdamesh held his personal property. Even in this corner of the universe, word of Megatron's attack on one of the space warp gates had made the news. The Galactic Alliance was watching Cybertron again. Galdamesh certainly didn't want them to watch the great Decepticon waltz into his arena and tear it apart for stealing what was his.

"I'm sure Megatron would be interested in this little tidbit of information," Swindle continued.

Galdamesh sighed visibly. "What do you want?"

"Oh, 20 percent of the profits in each of her fights should be enough to keep me quiet," Swindle grinned.

Galdamesh slammed his fist on the desk. "That's outrageous! That much money for you to do nothing? With all the business I have brought you, this is robbery!"

"I know for a fact that you make good money daily off that femme. Every one of her events is always sold out. You haven't had a gladiator make you that kind of profit for some time. So don't pretend you can't afford it."

"10 percent, and even that is steep," Galdamesh offered.

"Fifteen."

"Twelve. And I won't go a cent higher."

Swindle grinned. "It's a pleasure doing business with you." He cut the line.

Galdamesh swiveled his chair away from the black screen, no longer in a pleasant mood. His secretary announced a visitor. Galdamesh buzzed him in. A tall, suspicious figure wrapped in cloth came into the room. Galdamesh was unfazed by his presence.

"Drift. It's been a while."

His guest removed his hood, revealing the head of a Cybertronian, painted mostly white, with a contagious smirk.

"Galdamesh, you're looking older."

"Bah!" The Xartinian gave a gesture of dismissal. "What do you want? This isn't exactly the most accepting area for free neutrals."

Drift made himself comfortable on the edge of the desk. "I've been watching a few of your broadcasts. You've got some interesting new fighters."

"I hope you didn't come all the way for a date. They are otherwise occupied," Galdamesh said flatly.

Drift laughed. "Not quite. But I was hoping there was something you could arrange for me."

* * *

There were three of them in the ring this time. It was the first match Bayonette during which she felt she was being challenged. None of her other fights even came close to making her use her full power. This Xartinian really had no idea what it was like to be an Autobot femme, living with war on a daily basis. These measly fights were nothing. Not that Bayonette was complaining. She was completely fine with all her matches being easy and non-life threatening.

Galdamesh, however, was not. He was unsatisfied with the way both Bayonette and Chromia handled themselves in the ring. They had no showmanship. They brought with them no excitement. The Autobot femmes would merely end their matches quickly with as little damage to both parties as possible. Who would want to watch that? Not the paying customers.

So their owner kept upping the ante, finding more difficult opponents to force better battles out of them. Today Bayonette was up against three robots: non-sentient, armed to the teeth and programmed to kill. The Xartianian made it quite clear to her that death would be perfectly legal should she lose. So if she wished to survive, she had better fight for her life this time.

Fight, she did. The drones had projectile weapons. Bayonette had only her energy whip. The lithe femme dodged the barrage of bullets from all three guns, bouncing around the ring, rebounding off the walls, running for her life. Her long legs made her fast, but she couldn't run forever. The sooner she could attack, the better the chance she had of winning. The moment she saw her chance, Bayonette went for the first robot. She wrapped the whip around its neck, its body convulsing from the energy. One snap of the wrist and the head popped off.

But the headless body didn't go down. It wasn't Cybertronian; it could continue without a head. The robot fired aimlessly into the ring. Bayonette dove out of the way, running behind the other two to avoid the bullets. The other robots stumbled as they were pelted with firepower. Bayonette took her chance to snap the energy whip at the nearest robot, slicing the rifle off its arm.

The second she had the weapon in her hand, she synced her systems to it and opened fire. Her aim was better than theirs. They were programmed to shoot organic enemies, those who could be wounded anywhere. Bayonette aimed to wound robots. Her bullets found their necks, their joints and the very small spaces between their armor where they were exposed. One went down, its knee joint shattered. The robot with the missing weapon produced a new gun on the opposite arm while the other two continued to fire at her. Bayonette had no choice but to change her strategy. She needed to get even closer for a kill shot.

She leapt in the air, doing an impressive back flip before landing on the shoulder of the robot she had stolen from. Before it could realize it had a new passenger on its back, Bayonette shoved her new gun into its neck cavity and pulled the trigger. The bullets tore through the robot's mainframe, damaging its main systems. Its optics went dark as it fell for good.

Bayonette stumbled as several bullets pelted the armor of her back. One made it into her shoulder joint. Uncomfortable, but she could still fight. The femme rolled to the ground under the next robot. She shoved the barrel under its rib cage and pulled the trigger. It fell like the first.

The last, the headless robot, was easy to take down as she dodged its sporadic fire. This had been her longest bout in the ring yet, but Bayonette was still the victor. The crowd cheered her victory, but Bayonette paid them no mind. She never did. Her new weapon still in hand, her gaze turned toward the holding cells at the end of the arena. The femme stepped forward and instantly armed guards surrounded her from everywhere.

The Autobot stared them down for a few tense moments, but eventually dropped her weapon. Quickly, the guards moved to escort her off the ring. Bayonette's engines were still running hot and high. Escape was ever a present temptation, a constant obsession. Each match took longer to win, each opponent more dangerous. Eventually, the Autobot femmes would meet their match. Then they would never see outside of the ring again.

It was all Bayonette and Chromia talked about in their cells. They needed a solid plan, one that would get them and Twilight out. Once free of the ring, they would plot their way back to Cybertron. Security was their biggest hurdle. Armed guards were everywhere, security systems all around. The ring had been keeping reluctant gladiators within its clutches for a very long time. They knew how to do their jobs.

Bayonette was marched back into the darkness of the holding cells, looking much more scuffed and dented than when she came out. Chromia gave her a grim nod, welcoming her back as she was put back in the adjoining cell.

The guards came to fetch Blitzangel next for her match. The dark femme, as always, was hunched into the shadowed corner of her cell, blending into the darkness. She still didn't speak the language, but she knew when they were calling for her. Obediently, she stood and walked calmly toward the ring. Largo was there waiting for her, prepping her personally for this match.

"Galdamesh found a very special opponent for you today," he told her slowly. "A Cybertronian like yourself. He wants me to remind you that Cybertronian matches are death matches. You are allowed to kill him, for he will certainly try to kill you."

Blitzangel listened closely. She was still trying to pick up the language from the orders coming from Galdamesh. She knew the word Cybertronian, and she knew what a death match was.  
Blitzangel stepped out into the ring and the crowd roared. She was quickly becoming the fan favorite. Many spectators bought tickets to the day's events specifically to watch her fight.

On the other side of the ring, a Cybertronian stepped out. He was without visible faction, a mech, very large and heavy. Blitzangel felt her programming come alive at the sight of her opponent. Everything moved faster, everything looked brighter. The ring was life. Outside of it, there was nothing but darkness. She was ready.

* * *

High above the arena, in the plush house seats, Galdamesh turned his head as his guest walked into the room.

"There you are; I thought you were going to miss the main event."

Drift was still covered from head to toe in his usual bandages. He smiled beneath his hood and mask. "Had to do some quick shopping. The market downtown has some of the cheapest shuttle parts in the galaxy."

"Yes, well, I certainly wasn't going to hold this match to wait for you."

Drift just shrugged as the announcer introduced the two warriors for the current battle.

* * *

Blitzangel could never understand the voice over the speaker. It was too garbled to pick out the few words she knew. So her focus remained on her newest opponent. He was the first Cybertronian (aside from the resident femmes) she had seen in this arena. The fight could be interesting.

The two contenders stood only a few feet apart, sizing each other up. Blitzangel's face was neutral, as it often was. The mech, however, sneered at her. There was emotion burning in his optics.

"Decepticon," he spat at her in Cybertronian. "Femme or not, I'm going to rip you apart."

Blitzangel still did not react.

"The name's Crankshaft. You remember it, scrap!" he growled. "Mine will be the last face you ever see." He let his weapon fall to the ground, an impossibly heavy mace attached to a long chain.

Blitzangel would have no hope of being able to carry such a thing, let alone fight with it if she ever got her hands on it. He was several heads higher than she was, three times as large. But Blitzangel did not stand down.

The whistle sounded, signaling the beginning of the match. Blitzangel crouched into a fighting position.

"Get ready to lose that pretty face of yours," Crankshaft warned her. He spun his mace in the air, whipping it toward the smaller femme. She dodged it easily and the fight was on.

The crowd roared and cheered as Blitzangel dodged left and right. The spiked weapon was thrown at her again and again. Crankshaft could feel the strain on his joints from the weight. He just had to hit her once and a femme that small would be on the ground in no time. Then he could use his bare hands to rip her apart.

But the ever-elusive Blitzangel was not playing into his plans. She dodged this way and that, with the effortless grace of a skilled dancer. Crankshaft's joints were starting to creak and his temper boiled when he realized what she was doing.

"You glitch, you're drawing this out on purpose," he accused. "You think I'm just a plaything to trifle with while you put on a show for the crowd?"

Blitzangel didn't say anything, but a minute smirk managed to tug at her mouth. It passed after only an instant, but Crankshaft caught it and his temper rose. He roared as he tore through several obstacles littering the ring. Blitzangel continued to float lightly out of his reach and Crankshaft's pride couldn't stand it.

"You Decepticons are all cowardly garbage! Come closer and fight me!"

Suddenly, the Deceptifemme was in his face, lightly balanced on the taut chain of his weapon. She was clearly smirking at him now. Crankshaft swiped at her as Blitzangel leapt over his head. She pranced merrily away as he spun around to go after her. With all he could, he threw his weapon at her and this time, he let go of the chain. The purple Deceptifemme easy dodged the head of the mace once more, but she was not expecting the tail end of the chain to come whipping past her.

The hook on the end of the handle tore into her side, taking her along with it. The small body was flung across the ring by the heavy weight. She scraped along the ground, rolling to a stop just as Crankshaft thundered after her. Blitzangel tried to get on her feet faster, but Crankshaft slammed her hard into the wall with a massive claw. The force was enough to rattle her circuits and crack the glass canopy on her back.

"Poor little Decepticon," Crankshaft chided darkly. "I'm going to rip you apart piece by piece. You want to know why? Because I have seen the horrors your faction has done. Every last slagging one of you. Crystal City was my home and you tore it apart! And you want to know a little secret of mine?" He leaned in closer, grinning. "I lied to get into the games. I told them I was neutral because they don't allow Autobots to participate in the death matches." He purposefully leaned in, exposing a small panel on his side, bearing the familiar red symbol. "Now I'm going to do to you what every last one of your filthy kind deserves."

"Autobot?" Blitzangel felt something inside her snap. A rage she never realized had been boiling inside her for some time. She dropped out of the mech's hold and an energized blade sliced upward.

Crankshaft stumbled backward, grabbing his throat. The severed line spat energon out in all directions. The second he moved to stop the bleeding, another blade sliced clean at his side, right under the chest armor. Fresh energon poured over his hip at an alarming rate. Her attacks were so precise, as if she had medical knowledge of fuel line placement.

"Autobot?" Blitzangel asked again, louder, angrier, this time. "You're this smug merely because you're an Autobot? What good are they?"

She slashed at his other side and his shoulder. Crankshaft tried to fight back, but the sudden loss of pressure in his fuel systems was making him lightheaded and his limbs sluggish. He stumbled backward, coating the floor in fluids as Blitzangel continued to swipe at him, again and again. She cut him anywhere she could, taking her full anger out on the massive body.

"Damn all Autobots!" she screamed at him. "What good are they? WHAT GOOD ARE THEY?"

She kicked him in the midsection and Crankshaft stumbled backward. Blitzangel perched on his broad chest in an instant. Before the eyes of the crowd, she literally tore the mech apart piece by piece. She ripped off armor, joints, and wires as she continued to scream about Autobots. Energon coated the ground, the crowd practically crawling all over each other in response to the carnage. Crankshaft's struggles became more feeble.

Blitzangel yanked off a large chunk of the chest and there she saw it: the blue glow of the spark shone through. She made a fist. How she wanted to watch it pop, to see its glittering ooze dribble through all the cracks and mingle with the energon! But the spark continued to pulse beneath her and Blitzangel couldn't will herself to do it. She lowered her fist, head hanging in failure. The match was over. She had won.

* * *

From the house seats, Galdamesh looked over at Drift. The mech had removed his hood and mask during the fight, his optics glued to the fight below.

"You still want to meet her, Drift? As you can see, Deceptifemmes are very temperamental."

Drift's yellow optics were bright with excitement. He had seen several of her events televised on the screen. This was something new. Now he was more curious than ever.

"Set it up."

"As you wish," Galdamesh shrugged. "Though you owe me for this. And Drift?"

He could hardly tear his optics away. "Yeah?"

"Don't kill her."

* * *

Blitzangel staggered back into the holding cell area under the ring, covered in energon. She walked like a zombie, expression blank, her steps uneven. Chromia was there, as always, to berate her as she came back. The blue Autobot had seen the entire fight, though she was unable to hear the words Blitzangel was screaming.

"So I see your true nature finally shows through." She glared from behind the bars. "Bloodthirsty as any Decepticon, no hesitation to kill even one of our own."

Blitzangel stopped next to her, not looking at the blue Autobot.

"Have you not killed many of your own kind yourself?" she asked in a detached voice.

"War is different," Chromia insisted. "We're fighting for our lives. But in the ring, if he dies, it is on your head."

Blitzangel turned her energon-splattered optic band in Chromia's direction. "So what?" The lack of emotion in her tone was chilling. "You're all just robots anyway."

Chromia just stared as Blitzangel walked away. For the first time, she did not have a retort.

* * *

Blitzangel was very confused about where the guards brought her after they cleaned her up later that evening. It was an enclosed space like a large warehouse near the arena. The ceiling was fairly high, but there were no windows and only two exits, both of which were guarded. The Deceptifemme had no idea what was going to happen; she had never been brought there before.

Through the far doors walked a Cybertronian, a bundle in his arms. He was painted white with sharp features, not as large or bulky as the mech she had fought earlier. He carried no distinguishing faction mark. Blitzangel watched him warily, sizing him up. He had at least three blades on him, and who knew what other weapons? It was strange … they weren't in the ring and there were no spectators. This felt worse, stuck in a warehouse alone with an opponent so there were very few to witness.

When she felt the Cybertronian had gotten close enough, Blitzangel snapped out her arm blades and energized them. The other mech instantly stopped, hands up in defense.

"Whoa, hold on. I'm not here to fight you. Well, I mean, I would like to fight you, but I'm not here to ATTACK you, per se."

Blitzangel frowned at him, silent.

"You've never sparred before?" Drift tried. "You know, for fun?"

"I do not have that luxury," Blitzangel said flatly. "How lovely for you to be able to fight when you choose. Thank you for reminding me of my captivity." She turned toward the door.

"Wait," Drift called. "I can teach you. I can show you how to survive the ring."

Blitzangel paused and then looked back at him. "What do you mean?"

"I used to be like you. I used to be property, held here against my will. I was made to fight every night, each time wondering if I would finally lose my spark in the ring." Drift took a step forward. "But I didn't. I survived. And now I'm free to do as I please. Wouldn't you like to know how?"

"Why?" she asked. "Why do you want to tell me this?"

Drift grinned. She was listening now. "I've been watching your matches. You're pretty good. Though you fight like an organic and by my spark, I can't figure out why. How long have you been fighting?"

"Five-"

"Five thousand? That's not too bad. I can work with that."

"No, just five."

"YEARS?" Drift gaped. "Are you kidding me? That-" He paused to gather his thoughts. "Okay, I think I can work with that. No sense giving up before we even start. How about we just go at it and you show me what you've got, okay?"

Blitzangel still looked wary of the idea.

Drift dropped his bundle and began to remove all his weapons, piling them neatly by the wall. "No blades, no guns. Just skill. Show me what you've got."

Bltzangel turned to face him and sheathed her blades. "Fine. If that is what you wish."

He smiled at her. "My name's Drift."

Blitzangel didn't offer a name, just her foot as she kicked at his head. Drift blocked, looking amused. Did she expect she'd beat him right away and then it would be over? This was going to be interesting.

The Deceptifemme flew at him in a flurry of difficult punches and kicks. Drift noticed that with every missed attack she would use the momentum to fuel another one instead of letting the energy going to waste. It kept her fast and her attacks constant. But she still couldn't land a hit. The femme was fast, but Drift's experience kept him faster.

"You're not too bad for having trained for so short a time," Drift said as he continued to avoid her attacks. "Who taught you how to fight?"

"My father," Blitzangel said as she threw a spinning kick at him.

Drift blocked, holding her foot in the air. "You mean your creator."

"No, I mean my father." Blitzangel growled. She went in for a vicious jab, intent on stabbing her thin fingers through a gap in his armor.

Drift beat her to it, laying a similar jab on her throat at just the right spot. Blitzangel flew off her feet, flat on her back and sputtering as her optic band flickered. The white mech stood over her.

"You fight as though you've never battled against someone your equal. Well, I have news for you. They are out there and Galdamesh will find them all and pay handsomely to anyone who can kill you. The more popular you are, the more folks will pay to see you dead. Always remember that."

Blitzangel nodded silently and Drift offered her a hand up. She hesitated. It was weird to be touched by a mech without him trying to kill or reprogram her. She took the hand. It was more gentle than she thought it would be as he helped her to her feet.

"Now," he announced as he crouched. "I let you get warmed up, but be warned, I'm not going to go easy on you."

That was the end of Drift's gentleness. The second time they sparred, he fought back. Hard. Blitzangel could hardly get a punch or a kick in before Drift would send her flying to the floor, time and time and time again.

He was right; she wasn't used to fighting someone better than she was. She had never taken hits like this. Drift did not hold back. Each contact was at his full strength. It rattled her circuits and caused her vision to flicker out more than once.

Each time she listened to his instructions. Each time she tried harder not to get hit again. Each time it took him a little bit longer to knock her down. She was learning fast. Drift was satisfied he had chosen a good student.

Unfortunately, he needed more than just a few hours of hard work to fully train anyone. But that was all the time Galdamesh had granted his star gladiator. It was a pity. Drift sincerely hoped she survived.

The heat radiating off Blitzangel's engines was in the red before Drift announced they were finished. She probably would have kept going until she overheated if Drift had ordered it. When he said he was done, Blitzangel surprised him by flopping directly on the ground, face to the ceiling.

"What are you doing?" he wondered.

Blitzangel vented air from her heated systems. A shadow of a smile tugged at the side of her mouth. "That was... kind of fun."

Drift shrugged and lay down next to her, both watching the ceiling. There was a tiny window way up at the top and, through the glass, the darkness of the night sky above. Something inside of Blitzangel ached for open sky.

"So, are you going to tell me now?" Blitzangel asked. "Why you came here? How you even managed to set this up?"

"I've known Galdamesh since he was young. I was a gladiator for his father for 300 years. I'm kind of.. a friend of the family now."

"300 years, that's a long time to be fighting."

Drift shrugged. "Maybe for a Xartinian. They only live about 500 years or so. I made his family a lot of money by gaining the reputation of being unbeatable. On his deathbed, my owner released me, made me a free neutral lawfully. I am the first to be released in the history of this arena."

Blitzangel shifted. "So why did you want to see me?"

Another shrug from the white mech. "I don't know. Maybe I was homesick and I just wanted to hear my native language in a pretty voice. Or maybe, when I first saw you, I thought you might become the second." Silence passed between them before Drift added, "And maybe in another 300 years I will have the opportunity to offer you a ride on my ship and I can show you all the wonders I have found in this universe."

Blitzangel did not look at him. "But I'm a Decepticon."

Drift rolled over, propping himself on an elbow so he could look her in the face. He had golden optics. Blitzangel couldn't recall ever seeing optics that color before.

"Nothing wrong with being a Decepticon. Long time ago, it meant something. It meant pride and skill, not just senseless violence between our people."

The femme stayed quiet.

Drift got up. "I have to leave soon." He walked over to fetch his swords and the bundle, which turned out to be some sort of strange wrap he put it over his frame.

"So what's it like," Blitzangel called behind him, "to be a free neutral?"

Drift put the hood over his head. "It's slightly easier than being in the ring," he smirked, "but not by much. I think you'd quite like it."

"But you have to hide the fact that you're Cybertronian," she surmised.

"Not everyone on Cybertron realizes how the rest of the universe sees our kind. They tolerate us, yes, because we appear sentient, but they don't see us as their equals. To them, we are violent life forms gone rogue against those who created us. We are puppets without strings, broken dolls running amuck. Nothing but killing machines."

"Cybertronians are killing machines," Blitzangel insisted. "It seems to be their highest function. They are good at that."

"Yes, but we are also alive," Drift reasoned. "That means we could be so much more as a people if we wanted it." He pulled the mask over his mouth and nose so only his golden optics could be seen. "I hope I will see you in 300 years. I'll be leaving you a place on my ship. Don't die, okay?"

She looked at him with all seriousness. "Don't worry about me. It seems I am quite difficult to kill."

* * *

Elita walked into the central communications room where Ultra Magnus, Kup and Springer were hunched over a screen in collective perplexity.

"Can't make head nor tails of it, lass," Kup told her. "With Smokescreen on Earth and Nightbeat in the field, we can't find anyone to crack this signal. But the voice is definitely female. We thought you might know something of it."

Elita listened to the garbled audio message. Yes, that was definitely Beta's voice in there. She was loathe to hear from the old femme so soon. Everything had been going so well lately. Springer gave up his chair and Elita sat, plugging into the console. She downloaded the message, using the program Beta gave her to decode the transmission. Beta's voice came over her audios, though no one else could hear it.

"The Decepticon Swindle recently shipped Cybertronian parts to the planet Xartin-femme exclusive. There are rumors a gladiatorial ring currently uses Cybertronian femmes: one Decepticon, two claiming to be neutral. All procured shortly after the attack on your base. That is all."

That was the entire message. Elita sat, stunned. The mechs around her tried to get her attention, asking about the contents of the message in concern. Elita wasn't listening. All she could think about was how she could get her hands on a ship.

* * *

Prowl would spearhead the mission to Xartin. It was an interesting conversation to witness in Optimus Prime's office. The SIC, while always confident in his plans, had never told Optimus what he should do, merely offering his best suggestions for action. This time, Prowl TOLD Optimus where he was going and that he was taking a ship and a crew. Elita insisted in being on that ship as well. Optimus looked like he would object, but Prowl said he would allow her to join his crew and he would keep her safe. Elita had half a mind to remind Prowl that she outranked him. As if sensing the issue arising, Prowl stared her down until she lost all sense of her grievance.

This changed her opinion of Prowl. Elita always thought of the black and white Autobot as a quiet underling ... intelligent, confident, but without ambition or ability to lead beyond having a higher-ranking officer to call the shots. For a brief moment, Elita thought this mech could have carried the matrix. If he had, what would the war have been like then?

Prowl presented Optimus with a list of who he wanted on his crew: Jazz, Ironhide, Brawn and the twins. It was a tall order, though Prowl preemptively argued that Optimus had Ultra Magnus, Kup and all the Autobots Cybertron had to offer to pick up the slack while they were gone.

All the while, Optimus spoke not one word for or against Prowl's plan until the technician had said all he wanted to say. The Autobot leader sat back on his chair, calm, not betraying a sliver of what he thought. Prowl looked ready to walk out the door whether he was given permission or not.  
In the end, Optimus agreed with a strange undertone in his voice. He wished them luck and a safe journey. Elita, again, had that old suspicion that something was going on which she didn't understand.

Prowl wasted no time in prepping the shuttle for takeoff. Elita could not recall the last time she had been off Cybertron, but she was certain preparations never went this fast. It just so happened she managed to find a seat right next to the black and white Autobot. Prowl would be piloting the ship himself. Elita thought it strange he would be this pressed for time if he didn't have ulterior motives.

"Prowl," she said softly. "Tell me the truth. Is there someone specifically you are looking for?"

Prowl was in the middle of double-checking all his systems to be certain everything was running at optimal level. He did not even look up when he replied, "Whoever is on that planet, I promise you I will do everything in my power to bring them home."

Elita decided to let it go. Yes, her femmes were most important. No matter which ones drew the unfortunate straw of the fighting rings of Xartin, she would get them out and be grateful at least a few could be saved.

"That slagger Sunstreaker still ain't here," Ironhide grouched. "But everyone else is accounted for. Want me to radio him, Prowl?"

"Oh, Sunny said he's not coming," Sideswipe offered. "He scuffed his paint real good and said he couldn't go out in space looking like that."

Ironhide nodded, that sounded like him. At least when there was nothing going on. But the more he thought about it, the more he remembered there was the vain Sunstreaker when he was bored and the professional, soldier Sunstreaker when he was on duty. The yellow Autobot didn't just miss out on space missions for the sake of his own vanity.

"Now wait a minute, that doesn't really sound like-"

"Understood," Prowl interrupted. "Everyone strap in. Takeoff in 10 seconds."

* * *

Sunstreaker paced around the empty launching pad. Again he checked his information. This was the correct one. Where was everybody? Where was the fragging SHIP? Sunstreaker checked his information for the umpteenth time. Yes, right day, right time, right area. Where the hell was everybody? Every time he tried to hail Sideswipe he just got static. What was going on?

In the distance, he could feel the thunder of heavy thrusters rumbling to life. Seconds later the space shuttle tore across the skyline. Sunstreaker stared at it in a mixture of anger and disbelief.

"SIDESWIPE! WHEN I GET AHOLD OF YOU I'M GOING TO RIP YOU APART!"

"Sunstreaker?"

The yellow Autobot froze at the sound of that horribly familiar female voice. Thin arms clutched him in an iron grip.

"Oh, there you are," Roulette gushed. "What a romantic place you have found for us."

"I didn't find any-" Sunstreaker was yanked savagely down so she could nuzzle his cheek.

"It will be just like old times, my darling. Just sitting up all night watching the stars, holding each other. We will have a love every Autobot will envy."

Inside, Sunstreaker boiled. He was going to kill Sideswipe so bad the Matrix wouldn't even recognize his spark.

* * *

The planet Xartin, while not unreachable, was still a good distance away from Cybertron. The Autobot shuttle needed a space warp gate to get there in a moderate amount of time. With their local gate destroyed by Megatron and their membership under investigation by the Galactic Alliance, the Autobots had to use other means. There was another warp gate within a few jumps. This one was privately owned. One did not have to have a treaty with the Alliance to use it, one merely had to pay the hefty toll to go through. The usually frugal Prowl paid it without flickering an optic.

It was about a three day's journey before the planet Xartin appeared on their screen. With the number of alien travelers that came and went on a daily basis, it was easy for any life form, even a robotic one, to find a place to dock for the day if he had enough credits to pay. The Autobots knew exactly where they were going once they landed and they all hoped they wouldn't be staying too long.

During their trip, Prowl researched everything he could about the arena. He discovered the exact location and the name of the owner. Jazz and Ironhide helped him dig and they discovered clips from several matches. Most of them were old. It took maybe a week to get the current fights up over the interstellar information highway.

So with the information they had, it was confirmed that Blitzangel was indeed held as a gladiator at this ring. As well as Chromia, and another femme Elita identified as one of her own, Bayonette. All of them were alive at least a week or two ago. Hopefully, the same could be said about the present. Elita secretly wished there were more than just the two Autobot femmes here, but she could not complain if this trip afforded her the opportunity to bring even one of them home.

The arena, a massive structure with multicolored banners and loud, flashy vid screens, was buzzing with all sorts of alien life. Everyone seemed excited to get inside and enjoy the entertainment.

"Seems like a pretty happening place," Jazz commented as he looked around. "I didn't think it would be that popular."

"You'd be surprised what folks pay for ta get entertained," Ironhide mumbled.

Sideswipe was unusually quiet. Elita noticed he was standing quite close to her, as if afraid to get swept up in the crowd.

"So what do we do, Prowl?" Brawn asked. "We could just tear the place up, but I'm sure you've got a better plan?"

There was a momentary look on the SIC's face expressing that he was not entirely against Brawn's suggestion. "We will try the pragmatic approach first and see where that gets us."

"That is fine with me," Elita nodded, cracking her knuckles. "I have some excellent negotiating skills."

That caused Ironhide to smile a little. Prime sure had himself one heck of a femme. But then, so did he, if he could just figure out where she was in this place. "How do we even know where to find the ringmaster of this circus?"

Prowl eyed the massive amount of security equipment stationed everywhere, cleverly hidden among all the bright fanfare. "I think the one we're looking for already knows we're here." He led the way. "I'm sure if we attempt to go inside, that will catch his attention."

Sure enough, as soon the Autobots tried to make their way through the main gate, four Xartinian guards, quite armed, stood in their way.

"I'm sorry," the front guard said neutrally. "But we do not allow Autobots into this establishment. Your status with the Galactic Alliance is pending. We have the right to refuse service to you."

"We are not patrons," Prowl told them in their own language. "We are here to do business with your boss. Take us to him."

The guards energized their weapons. "Stand down, Autobots. You will not do business here."

"You have two options," Prowl said. "You may take us to your employer peacefully, or my soldiers and I will level this whole arena, looking for him."

Brawn effortlessly pulled a gate off its hinge and rolled the metal into a ball to prove the point.

"Now," Prowl continued. "I doubt your boss wants to see any harm done to his clientèle in the process, nor does he want any property damaged in his fine arena. So why don't you contact him? I'm sure he would be quite interested to be informed of this offer."

The guard didn't have to call. His radio beeped for him.

"Let them in," Galdamesh said.

* * *

The Autobots were taken to an office located in a large building built into the back of the arena. They had an impressive entourage armed to the teeth. This Galdamesh was no fool. He knew what he was dealing with, though it was possible he didn't know the full extent of the damage a team of Autobots could do, even one this small. They were escorted inside the extensive office where even more guards waited and, Prowl suspected, there were several other security measures in place should the conversation turn ugly.

Despite the precautions, Galdamesh sat in his seat, as cool as could be. "Autobots," he greeted. "This is quite an unexpected surprise. I understand you believe there is something I can do for you? I will try if I can, though I cannot imagine what it could be. Here on Xartin, we do not have much to do with the affairs of Cybertron."

"My name is Prowl, second in command of the Autobot army, directly under the Autobot leader Optimus Prime. We are here because you have Cybertronians in your arena."

Galdamesh merely shrugged at the posturing. "Neutral. They have no affiliation with you."

"They are Autobot soldiers whom you stole from their planet and stripped to make them appear as neutrals so you could traffic them."

"I assure you I did no such thing." Galdamesh pulled a pile of papers from his desk. "I purchased those neutral femmes legally. Here is the documentation stating my ownership and what I paid for them. These are the statements verifying those femmes were certified neutral- unrelated to any faction- when they were purchased. My ownership of them is completely lawful."

A data pad was slammed onto his desk.

"I have a few files of my own. I am Elita-One, commander of the female Autobot army. I have proof- serial numbers, energy signatures- that those femmes are under my command."

Galdamesh didn't even blink. "How am I to know these femmes did not defect from your ranks and now you want them back for your own justice? You have no proof to the contrary."

Elita boiled internally at the insinuation that any of her femmes would desert her.

Prowl moved her back, reminding her to check her temper. "There must be some sort of compromise we can reach. We came a very long way and we are not going back empty-handed."

Galdamesh sat back in his chair, fingers steepled before him. This definitely was a conundrum. He was unwilling to give up his gladiators for free, but what could he come up with to get these Autobots to leave him in peace? A smile crept slowly over his face as the thought came to him.

"I will tell you what, Autobots. I am still a businessman, after all. How about I offer you a deal? One of you will go into the arena tonight and face my prize fighter, who is currently undefeated in the ring. If the soldier of your choosing can best her, I will keep full profits from the match and let you take those femmes back with you."

Prowl was silent. So were the others.

"This is the only offer I am putting on the table, Autobots. Accept it or please leave my office."  
"I accept," Prowl said after a few moments. "But I want everything in writing with your signature, a legally binding contract."

Galdamesh just grinned. "A business-minded Autobot as well as a soldier. I'm impressed. Very well, I will draw up the documents."

* * *

After the papers had been carefully read and signed by both parties, the Autobot team was escorted down below, through the lower corridors of the arena where the viewing public would not see them. Their entourage, still fully armed, led them to the opposite side of the arena from where the femmes were being held in their cells.

"Prowl, dude, how are we going to do this?" Jazz whispered in their own language as they walked. "Who's gonna fight her?"

"It's not gonna be me," Brawn said. "I can't just go out there and hit a femme as hard as I can, even if she is a Decepticon."

Jazz watched Prowl's face. No one else knew their theory about who Blitzangel might really be. Everyone thought she was just another Deceptifemme. Would it be right to send anyone else out there to fight her?

"I'll do it," Ironhide volunteered. He had a raging urge to fight for his femme, even if Chromia hated it when he got that way. "I'll take her down."

"I will be fighting her," Prowl said without breaking his stride. "It is my mission and I will fight her. The rest of you, if you see any sign that the Xartinian is going back on his word, take action and be ready."

Jazz stayed silent, wondering if he was making the right choice.

* * *

It was two hours before the match would take place. For Prowl, it seemed like a lifetime. Usually, he had endless tolerance for waiting, but was hard to pass the time beneath the ring. He could hear the heavy rumble of the crowd, the blurred voice of the announcer, the klaxon of the bells. It made it hard to sit still.

One of the ring attendants told him they would come for him soon. His match would be next, where he would fight one on one with the Deceptifemme Blitzangel. He had to beat her; there was no other option. Even if she hated him for it, he could live with that if it meant he was taking her back home.

Prowl tried to tune out the din of the noise around him. He had to focus on his victory. He had to think like her, be faster than her, not give an inch to her because he could not afford to lose.

Perhaps that was why he didn't notice the form approaching from behind. If he hadn't been so focused on the task at hand, if the ring attendant coming to unlock the barred gate hadn't distracted him, maybe Prowl would have reacted in time. But he didn't.

"Alright, which one is going into the ring?" the attendant asked.

Prowl was not aware anyone was behind him until he felt a sharp pain in the back of his neck. A strong pile driver hit him in the side and Prowl's world spun as his balance program tried to recalibrate. Arms from a taller body caught him before he fell and gently lowered him to the ground.

Prowl's confused processor whirred a million miles a minute as red paint filled his vision.

"Sorry Prowl," he heard a voice say. "Believe me, I'm doing you a favor."

The Autobot walked out and the gate was locked behind him. Prowl struggled to recalibrate and jumped to his feet, shaking the heavy gate.

"Sideswipe!" he barked down the corridor. "Get back here! That's an order! Sideswipe!"

The lanky Autobot didn't slow down and he did not look back.

* * *

Sideswipe remembered the roar of the crowd, though it had been a long time ago. He caught a glimpse of the ring as the attendant offered him an assortment of weapons from which to choose. Sideswipe declined them all. A contract was shoved in his face, stating that the arena held no legal responsibility for any damage or deaths that might occur during the fight and the Autobot faction had no legal right to pursue repercussions should he lose or anything go awry. Sideswipe signed it without even reading it, though he knew he had a brother who would never heed such a document if something went wrong. But Sunstreaker would more likely take it out of his hide than from Galdamesh's if he had any grievances stemming from this deal.

Sideswipe was allowed to walk out into the arena as he was announced over the speakers. The fact that he was an actual Autobot seemed to go over with the crowd. Sideswipe idly wondered if they would get their money's worth. He did not have any idea how this battle was going to go down.

A small platform opened on the other side of the arena and Sideswipe's opponent was slowly raised up through the floor. The crowd roared twice as loud as the remaining victor, the fan favorite, appeared in the ring. Blitzangel had her back to him as her name was announced, then she turned to face the Autobot. Her expression remained neutral even as Sideswipe smirked at her.

"Remember me?"

Blitzangel's blades snapped out and energized.

"Huh. Maybe you do."

The whistle sounded, signaling the beginning of the match. Blitzangel crouched, ready for the fight. Sideswipe did the same, though his pose was looser. He recalled the small skirmish he'd had with her the last time. If he was a bit faster than her, he could catch her off guard.

Blitzangel charged. She slicing at him with one arm, then the other. When Sideswipe dodged, her foot caught him and he was forced off his feet, sliding sideways on the ground.

_She's gotten better_, Sideswipe thought to himself. He slowly got back to his feet. I_f I don't beat her, Prowl's going to kill me and he's just going to be the first in line._

Blitzangel advanced again. She hit him hard, not even needing to use her blades except to get him to dodge right in the direction she wanted. Her large feet and powerful legs delivered plenty of strength and Sideswipe found himself face down on the ground again. This wasn't going well.

"Get up," he heard the femme say behind him. "You're giving these people a horrible show."

Sideswipe felt energon trickle down the side of his mouth from the last kick. He wiped it off with the back of his hand as he got to his feet.

"So you can talk. That's a nice voice you got there. You're still as pretty as I remember you, too."

Blitzangel sneered as her temper flared. She punched at him and Sideswipe caught her wrist. He pulled her in so they were almost nose to nose.

"But then again, you really were kind of cute before, too."

He could hear her engine rumble with anger as she growled. She slashed at his front and Sideswipe stumbled back as he felt the blades bite into metal. Most of the cut fell across the thick armor of his chest, but she also managed to nick a cord on his neck. Sideswipe pressed a finger there to test the injury. Only a small amount of fluids. He would be okay.

"Get out," Blitzangel spat. "Go back where you came from."

"Sorry babe, not without you. I'm taking you back home."

Blitzangel slashed at him, Sideswipe dodged.

"I have no home."

"Now, now, you know better than that."

Blitzangel made a sound of anger and frustration as she hit him hard in a flurry of kicks and punches. Her foot collided with the middle of his chest and Sideswipe was sent flying into the wall.

"Get out," she said again.

Sideswipe sat there for a moment, letting his systems recover from the collision. His body was scraped and dented, leaking fluids from a few of his wounds. He could just picture the other Autobots watching the match, thinking he had screwed up the entire mission. He couldn't let it end this way. He couldn't leave this ring without a win. There was no talking to this femme. If he couldn't convince her, then he would have to beat her into the ground.

Sideswipe slowly made it to his feet again. Some of the crowd cheered, others booed. Sideswipe remembered the crowd. He remembered a time where he would tune out nothing but the crowd and the bot in front of him. There were times he yearned for it, even now. It was the only time he ever allowed himself an outlet to that darker part of himself he kept locked away. Even on the battlefield, it wasn't the same. War was about survival. The ring was about brutality for brutality's sake. But he had promised Sunstreaker he would never do that again. What would his brother do to him when he found out he broke that promise? Even for this? Sideswipe didn't have a choice. He hoped at least a small part of his twin would understand.

He eyed the femme in front of him as she watched carefully to see what he would do next. Sideswipe slowly tuned everything else out, letting himself absorb the full ambiance of the ring. The excitement, the violence, the bloodshed ... he soaked it all in. Slowly, he let another long dormant program take over.

"Sorry," Sideswipe said softly.

Blitzangel tipped her head, frowning in confusion. She saw the change in him as clear as day. Sideswipe always had such an expressive face, but in that instance, all the emotion slid away. His light blue optics turned lighter, to ice. To nothingness. He charged.

Blitzangel thought she knew how fast he was, that she could calculate his punches and dodge in time. She thought wrong. The red Autobot hit her with such force she was sent spiraling across the arena. It was harder than Drift ever hit her. Much harder. The crowd was going wild, throwing concessions at the protective net. Blitzangel scrambled to recover, trying to get to her feet. Sideswipe was already in reach. He grabbed her, picking up her light form and slamming her on the ground. The cockpit on her back shattered and the energon lurched in her body.

Sideswipe's fist flew toward her midsection, but Blitzangel rolled away just in time. She continued to retreat, constantly hopping backward, until she could get her bearings again. Once her systems could recalibrate, she went on the offensive again, changing her strategy to adapt to the higher prowess Sideswipe was manifesting. She came at him faster and surprised him by switching her fighting styles. Sideswipe was used to Cybertronians. She wasn't going to attack him like one.

The red Autobot expected another frontal attack, but Blitzangel slid between his legs and sliced at his lower back. Sideswipe saw warnings on his CPU as his back strut was damaged. Blitzangel kicked at his knee joint and then ran to the wall, charging right up the side and launching into a back-flip, landing squarely on Sideswipe's shoulders.

One quick twist and she brought them both down to the ground, his neck crushed between her thighs. She scratched at the cut on his neck cable and tore it wide open. Sideswipe managed to get a hold of her and fling her away before she did more damage. The neck injury was bleeding freely now, but Sideswipe paid it no mind. Blitzangel was smart when it came to one-on-one fighting. The longer she fought with someone, the more she understood her opponent's style and the more easily she could predict his next move. Sideswipe knew he had to hit her hard, now, and make sure she never got up if he wanted any hope of winning.

Sideswipe ran at her, fist flying. Blitzangel moved to avoid the hit and Sideswipe stepped right into her when she tried to dodge. The femme was good at close combat, but she couldn't compete with the mech's strength when he had her in his clutches. With one arm trapping her against him, Sideswipe grabbed her wrist and yanked. Blitzangel bit back a cry as one arm was dislocated from its joint. The blade on her arm instantly lost power. She scrambled to get away, but Sideswipe shoved her down, pinning a knee to her back. He ripped out a main fuel line in the back of her neck. Blitzangel turned to attack and Sideswipe backhanded her to the ground, now splattered with her energon.

The purple femme grunted and snarled with complete contempt as Sideswipe shoved his knee into her chest.

"You still owe me," she growled.

Sideswipe's expression stayed dead. He had no other way to pay her back but this. "I know."

He dove his hand into the mesh of exposed wires in her midsection and yanked out as many as he could. Blitzangel spasmed as several warnings peppered her vision all at once. Energon bled out of her mouth as her optic band flickered. Sideswipe stood up, head down, as the small body twitched, leaking fluids around his feet. He waited for the timer while the femme stayed down. Blitzangel coughed up energon. Still he waited as seconds ticked by. The buzzer sounded. The announcer crowed that Sideswipe was the official victor of the fight.

The red Autobot dropped to his knees and pulled out medical tape from his subspace first aid kit. He immediately began wrapping the femme's leaking midsection. Prowl and the other Autobots were running through the arena over to him. No doubt they left a broken gate and some irritated ring attendants in their wake. Sideswipe clutched the small, damaged body to his chest as Prowl and Jazz ran to inspect her.

"She.. she didn't leave me much choice," he said weakly, his face now full of emotion again. "She wasn't going to stop."

Prowl was too distracted to talk to him. Galdamesh's guards were spilling into the arena from both sides. Prowl stood in front of his team as Galdamesh himself stepped into the ring.

"We won the match," Prowl said evenly. "Honor your contract and let us go."

"Oh, I intend to honor every word," Galdamesh grinned. "That femme is not part of our deal."

Prowl narrowed his optics. He had a bad feeling. "What do you mean?"

Gladamesh had the papers in his hand. "The contract said you could take all the neutral femmes that I had in my possession at the end of the match." He nodded in Blitzangel's direction. "She is Decepticon."

Prowl froze. Beaten out by a technicality; how could he let that happen? It was his own fault. He never thought of her as a Decepticon so he never caught the stipulation.

"You knew we intended to take all of them," he accused.

Galdamesh swung the papers between his fingers. "Not my problem. I'm interested in the letter of the law, not the spirit, Autobot. Now get out of my arena and leave my gladiator here or I will force you out."

As Jazz attempted to help Prowl with his argument, Sideswipe glanced down at the femme in his arms. His optics zeroed in on the claw marks on her chest, going right through her Decepticon insignia. He took a closer look. There was a different color under that black and purple paint. He scratched at it with his thumb to see what was underneath.

Prowl was almost fit to punch the Xartinian in the face when Sideswipe called to him.

"Prowl, the contract doesn't matter anyway."

The black and white turned around as Sideswipe limped up to them, Blitzangel's body in his arms. He left a trail of energon from both bodies. At the Deceptifemme's collar, they could all see the pink base coat. Stamped on top of it was a red insignia.

"She's Autobot. Lawfully she belongs to us no matter what the contract says."

Galdamesh dropped the contract. He wasn't expecting that.

Prowl still looked perturbed, but Jazz cut in. "Let's just get the others and get out of here before anything else happens. That's all that matters."

Prowl nodded. "Ironhide, Elita, go to the femme's cells and get them out. Jazz and I will watch your backs."

"On it, Prowl," Ironhide nodded.

He turned to leave and a hand snatched his wrist. A small, black hand belonging to the damaged Blitzangel. She worked her mouth, trying to get some sound. Her red optic band flickered weakly. Without the proper amount of fuel in her body, it was difficult to make anything work. Ironhide leaned over to hear her whisper.

"Chromia... the others... he sold them. They're on a ship... departing now."

Ironhide's optics widened. That slimy Xartinian didn't plan on letting them leave with a single femme. He tight beamed this information to the other Autobots on his team. Prowl and Jazz exchanged similar looks and then made the mistake of looking in Galdamesh's direction. The Xartinian saw that they knew what he had done. He moved as if to give orders to his guards. Prowl and Jazz reacted together. The simultaneously pulled out their blasters and fired. The attack wasn't meant to harm anyone. The lasers landed at the guard's feet, keeping them at bay while Prowl ordered the rest of his team to retreat.

After a few more warning shots, the two seconds transformed and drove out of the arena. Galdamesh was fit to be tied. Never had he been made such a fool of. And by Cybertronians, no less! If their next destination was what he was thinking, this would not be very good indeed.

* * *

Chromia, Bayonette and Twilight found themselves once again cuffed in the hull of another ship. Chromia had not really seen this coming. She would have expected to be working for the arena for a while yet. Maybe that Galdamesh was more irritated with their performance than she had originally thought. To the pit with him, anyway. She was glad to be out of there.

"Wh-where do you think we're going now?" Twilight asked softly.

"It couldn't be anywhere worse than where we were," Chromia spat. "Good riddance. He didn't sell us soon enough."

"But... what about Blitzangel?"

"Galdamesh's cash cow? He would never part with her." Chromia huffed and shrugged in her cuffs. "Those two deserve each other."

Twilight tried to keep her emotions in check. She knew she had to be strong or she could be a burden. But did that mean she had to be sparkless? "She tried to help me. She tried to help all of us and we're just leaving her behind."

"It wasn't our choice, Twilight," Bayonette said softly. "There was nothing any of us could have done. It may be that after this the three of us will be separated as well."

Twilight couldn't stop trembling. "No! I'm not leaving you guys!"

She gripped Bayonette's arm. The much taller femme patted her head, causing her to look in her optics.

"You will be fine, Twilight. A design like yours, you will have a very fine job, much better than this. You will have a safe, easy life. So you promise me, you will work hard and stay where you are and one day, we will come find you, okay?"

It seemed to break the spark of the little femme to agree to such a thing, but Twilight opened her mouth to give her promise.

The ship jolted to a halt, causing all three femmes to fall to the floor.

"What the pit was that?" Chromia demanded. She tried to get her footing, despite the energy drainage from the stasis cuffs. The ship shuddered as it was pelted by enemy fire. "What is it now? Space pirates?"

A signal came onto all of their radios. An Autobot signal. _Move away the walls and brace yourselves._ Bayonette and Chromia grabbed Twilight between them and dove to the floor. A massive hole exploded through the side of the hull. Above Twilight's screams, Chromia could hear the high pitch of missile and laser fire. As the smoke from the explosion cleared, Chromia could see the curve of the planet Xartin below them. They had not yet cleared the atmosphere. The ship tipped to one side and several crates of cargo slid out, falling several miles to the ground. That was going to be the fate of the female Autobots if they didn't hold on.

Despite impossible odds, a male Cybertronian figure scrambled into the hull, a thick cable tied around his waist.

Chromia couldn't believe her optics. "Sideswipe! You fragging glitch! What are you doing here?"

"Ladies," he grinned. "Happy to see me?"

"Never been so happy to see an Autobot," Bayonette confirmed.

"You look like slag," Chromia said.

"Feel a bit like it, too," Sideswipe confirmed. Something exploded outside, rocking the ship again. "Let's get you out of here."

The cord on his waist had a hook which Sideswipe secured to the hull. The other side led to an Autobot shuttle and it was a gorgeous sight, shining in the sun.

Bayonette pushed Twilight forward. She seemed shy of such a large mech, but Sideswipe hardly glanced at her face before unlocking her stasis cuffs and instructing her to hang on tight and slide down the cable.

Elita-One herself was waiting at the door of the shuttle to catch the small femme. Twilight squealed in delight as she hugged her leader. Elita was quite elated as well. They originally thought there were only two Autobot femmes to save. Bayonette slid down next, looking quite relieved. Elita hugged her as well.

Twilight had already noticed one of the other mechs manning a few of the weapons on the shuttle.

"Brawn!" she squealed as she charged the smaller mech.

He stared at her. "Twilight?"

Her arms were already around him, squeezing him tight. "I'm so glad to see you!"

Brawn did his best to get out of her crushing grip, not used to being fawned over by any femme. "Look, kid, let's save this until later. I gotta give cover fire until we're out of here."

* * *

"Last one out," Sideswipe said as he unlocked Chromia's cuffs.

The ship dipped violently. The owners must have realized there was a tow rope coming out of their cargo hold. The force snapped the cable. Sideswipe lunged for it just as the ship lunged itself. Chromia tried to grab his hand, but she was one second too late. The red Autobot was thrown from the ship. Luckily, Sideswipe managed to grab the cable and climb back up to the Autobot shuttle.

Chromia was not so lucky. She watched helplessly as the ship steered away from her rescuers.

But the femme wasn't going to let that stop her. If she had to fight for her freedom, so be it. She certainly wasn't going to sit idly by in this cargo hold and hope for the best. Digging her fingers into the side of the gaping hole, Chromia prayed to Primus and then swung herself outside. From there, she proceeded to climb up the side of the ship. It wasn't the easiest surface to grip, but Chromia was determined to make it to the top. After sliding once or twice, the femme managed to pull herself to the top of the ship.

It felt good to be in the open air again, even if it was several miles above solid ground. For a moment, Chromia thought, if she died here, she would be satisfied. At least she died free.

"Chromia!"

Above the roar of the wind and the engines, a voice so painfully familiar called her name. She looked up as the Autobot shuttle raced toward her through the fire of the other ship. Hanging out of the side door was Ironhide, stretched out as far as he could. He reached for her as the shuttle buzzed overhead. Chromia jumped. A solid hand caught her wrist and she was carried away, nothing but open air beneath her feet.

One good yank and she was inside the shuttle, the door closed safely after her.

"Gotcha," Ironhide grinned in her audio as he enfolded his arms around her. Chromia couldn't have been happier to see Primus himself than to have the heavier form of Ironhide hold her tight.

"What took you?" she smiled back tiredly. "I was only a few solar systems away."

"Sorry ma'am. Took me a while to figure out the bus route. Forgive me?"

Chromia whispered that she would be doing something to him later that would show how much she forgave him. Ironhide's core temperature went up a little at her words.

"That's everyone," Prowl announced. He turned to the Autobot piloting. "Jazz, get us out of here. We're going home."

* * *

In the back of the Autobot shuttle was a small, dark room. The door slid open and a figure walked in, posture stiff, door panels erect. He strolled over to the body laying lifelessly on a cot. As the shuttle took off from Xartin, Blitzangel had finally slipped into stasis for good. Her wounds had been wrapped tightly to try to stop all the leaking, but a tiny bit of energon was still managing to sneak out from somewhere. For several moments, Prowl looked at the lifeless face, the dark optic band, then at the broken body. His optics settled on the pink patch of paint.

Venting out air like a sigh, Prowl's shoulders drooped and he sat himself on the floor against the wall. He brought his knees up and rested his head in his hands. Slowly, the Autobot's optics dimmed as he allowed himself to slip into recharge. It felt like the first time he had rested in a very long time.


	9. Chapter 9: Broken Doll

Rising Generations  
Chapter 9: Broken Doll

Moonracer was the first. She was the first of the female Autobots to be included on a mission with the males, and she was happy to go. While Moonracer was used to being in tight quarters with her sisters, she wasn't used to sitting around for days on end with nothing to do. At the femme base, there were always many things to keep one occupied: sentry duty, repairs, monitor duty, resource hunting, information gathering and so on. As guests of the Autobot base, there was absolutely nothing for them to do but sit in the bunkers and wait.

Moonracer was one of those bots who needed to be active. If she had to sit in that room for one more day, staring at those same four walls, she thought her processor was going to fry. When Firestar came in, asking for a volunteer for a mission, Moonracer loudly elected herself without even thinking. Some of her sisters giggled, tittering about how she sure was eager to get with the mechs. They didn't understand, Moonracer just needed to get out for the sake of her own sanity, no matter what company she would be keeping.

The mission was led by Ultra Magnus, an impressively sized mech, if Moonracer had ever seen one. The team was sent out to an abandoned Autobot outpost near the edge of their territory. It had only recently been totaled by the Decepticons in the past few weeks. It was newly discovered that the structure housed a secret energon supply that remained undiscovered. With their lack of resources, the energy was worth the risk.

Moonracer already proved her usefulness by offering knowledge of a few underground roads large enough to hold the convoy. This allowed the Autobot team to close in on the targeted area without being noticed by any stray Decepticons who may be loitering nearby.

It was a difficult mission to plan for. The Decepticons scrapped every sensor and monitor in the area when they attacked. There wasn't a single functioning scanner in the vicinity that could alert them of an enemy presence. Stealth seemed the right way to go. Ultra Magnus quietly wished Prowl was within radio contact so he could have access to that legendary tactical processor for a second opinion. But Prowl and several other of Prime's top Autobots were on a rescue mission on another planet. So Ultra Magnus stuck to his instincts, which usually did not steer him wrong.

The team surfaced when they neared their target, hiding in the shadows as they awaited orders.

"Blurr," Ultra Magnus said quietly. "Check the building, make sure it's empty. If you see a single Decepticon, let me know."

"On it." Blurr saluted and was gone with a woosh of air.

"Moonracer."

"Yes, sir."

"I hear you're the best sharp shooter Elita's got."  
Moonracer grinned. "Yes, sir."

"You will be our insurance. Stake yourself in that building there. Keep one optic on the door, the other on the sky." He then turned to the light blue mech. "Mirage, you keep the rest of this area secure."

Mirage just saluted and disappeared. Moonracer stared at the area the mech had been. She was unaware they had a soldier who could do that.

When Ultra Magnus received word from Blurr that the building seemed deserted, he gave the signal for the rest of his team to advance.

Moonracer didn't know all of their names yet. There were so many Autobots, she felt she couldn't possibly learn them all. But one challenge at a time. Right now she had to keep her processor on the task at hand. She hid herself in the appointed building, a few flights up at a window that gave her a terrific vantage point.

There she sat in silence, optics sharp and alert. She watched the building, glancing now and then to the sky. Her fingers stayed on the trigger, ready to defend it at the mere nanosecond of trouble. Moonracer was almost hoping for a Decepticon to come into her sights. She was eager to show off what she could do, though she knew the best missions were always the ones without incident.

A muffled sound reached Moonracer's audios and she froze. It sounded like male voices, coming from within the building. Moonracer felt cold. They couldn't be Autobots, could they? There were no Decepticons in the building, Moonracer had checked. Well, she hadn't checked every room, she didn't have the time. Was it possible she had screwed up and missed them?

Slowly, Moonracer took her rifle and slid into the darkness of the corner. She could hear the voices clearer now and the shuffling of heavy feet. Inching toward the door, Moonracer peered carefully out at the stairs. She saw the top of one of them: tall, dark colors, sharp wings. He was standing at a door way one floor below, speaking sharply to someone else in the other room.

"Get up you two, we've been gone too long. Shockwave's going to think something's up."

Within the room, Astrotrain lazily pulled himself into a sitting position, wincing at the sharp tone. "Not so loud, Octane, I've still got a buzzing in my circuits."

"That's because you drank too much," Blitzwing mumbled from the floor.

"So did you," Astrotrain accused as he kicked at his fellow triple-changer.

Blitzwing groaned at the sudden jolt. Octane, who obviously hadn't over energized as much as the other two, was watching without sympathy.

"If we don't check in soon, Shockwave's going to start looking for us. If he finds out we've spent all our time here, he's going to investigate and take all the energon for himself."

Octane turned and Moonracer hid back behind the wall. So that's what happened. The three triple-changers found the energon storage in the outpost. They had probably been passed out in one of the rooms, which was why Moonracer wasn't aware of their presence when she crept into the building. Now that they were conscious and moving around, there was the potential that they would find the Autobots in the other building. Three triple-changers could do quite a bit of damage.

Moonracer opened a channel to hail Ultra Magnus.

"Someone's here," Octane announced from downstairs.

"What, in the building?" Astrotrain asked as he poked his head out of the room. "You see somebody?"

"I felt a different energy, just for a second." Octane pulled out his weapon.

Moonracer pressed against the wall, her fuel pump pounding. While she considered herself a femme who could hold her own, she knew better than to foster the notion that she stood a chance against three triple-changers. They were built too big and too heavy. She just didn't carry the kind of firepower that would easily bring down Decepticons of that size. Her best chance was to get out and convene with Ultra Magnus' team within the other building. The Autobots within were more than enough to take on the present Decepticons.

"You are just being paranoid," Astrotrain insisted. "We've been here the entire time."

"Passed out the entire time," Octane corrected as he began to make his way up the stairs, blaster ready. "I'm just going to make sure."

Moonracer hugged the wall as she heard him ascend the stairs. She clutched her blaster, trying not to make a sound as she slipped away from the door into a darker part of the room. She had more than enough experience with hiding in the shadows. If she could just stay undetected, she would be okay.

Octane walked into the room, optics sweeping left and right. Astrotrain and Blitzwing followed after him, the two lumbering around without care. Blitzwing wandered up to the window where Moonracer had stationed herself and looked out.

"Hey, is it just me, or are there lights in our outpost?"

The other two Decepticons instantly went to see for themselves.

"You think someone else found our stash?" Astrotrain wondered.

Moonracer saw her chance and crept out from behind the ruble where she was hiding and slipped through the doorway.

"There!" She heard Octane bark just as she fled down the stairs. "I saw someone! They just went out the door!"

Heavy footsteps thundered down the stairs as Moonracer raced down the hall. She retreated into a large room and stared at it in horror. It was massive, but completely bare with only one small window too tiny to squeeze through. She was trapped and the Decepticons were closing in. Moonracer had no choice but to turn and fight for her life. She readied her weapon as the heavy footsteps thundered toward the door. Then, something invisible grabbed her from behind.

The Decepticons stormed into the room, Octane in the lead. He looked around, but clearly there was no one in the barren space.

"See?" Astrotrain insisted. "What did I say? You're too paranoid. There's nobody here."  
Octane wandered around the room, frowning. His finger itched on the trigger. He had seen someone, he was sure of it. He could hear the footsteps. They led to this room. Even now, something wasn't right. Something was making the tips of his wings twitch as if they were not alone.

Moonracer stayed silent. The massive Decepticon was so close, it was hard not to panic. She could see him even if he could not see her. It was an alien sensation to be invisible, yet out in the open. She could still see everything. The world appeared through a strange filter, washing out the colors and warping the world as if looking through a film of water.

Even the Autobot pressing her flat against the wall, she could see right through his lanky frame to the Decepticons in the room. It was as if he wasn't even there. Yet, she could feel the thrumming of his engines pressing into her chest. She knew his mouth was close to her audios when he whispered "Don't move." in a low voice. Her body was shaking a little, his was sturdy and strong. Moonracer froze, even as Octane drifted closer to their location. The Autobot stayed firm and calm against Moonracer. Their faces brushed and Moonracer felt her body get warmer.

The heavy rumbling of a space shuttle entering the atmosphere reverberated through the building.

"Let's get out of here," Astrotrain said. "If that's not one of ours, Shockwave's going to start looking for troops in the area. We don't want him catching us here."

The others nodded and withdrew from the room, leaving two very relieved Autobots in their wake.

* * *

The yellow fist collided with his face and Sideswipe stumbled backward into the wall.

"Ouch, Streak," he complained as he rubbed his jaw. "Not so hard, I just got out of the med bay. I don't want to go back."

"I outta scrap you until no medic can tell your optics from your exhaust," Sunstreaker growled. He was pacing back and forth in front of his brother, fit to be tied. "Of all the cockamamie stunts you've pulled over the years, this- what the hell did you think you were doing? And I'm not even talking about leaving me behind. That's just the first reason on my list for kicking your can do the moon."

"I did it for you," Sideswipe said simply.

Anger and bafflement seemed to fight for control on Sunstreaker's face. "For me? What? That doesn't even make sense! You tricked me out of the mission so you could go play in the Xartinian battle area, you scraphead! You PROMISED me you would never fight in another ring again!"

"I know." Sideswipe's soft voice just seemed to agitate his brother further.

Sunstreaker kept pacing around like a caged tiger, clenching and unclenching his fists, as if ready to pound into something or someone at any time. He certainly wanted to beat some sense into his twin. He thought Sideswipe understood why he made his brother promise to stay out of the ring. Sunstreaker wasn't always the best big brother, but in this, he was certain he had done the right thing.

Before the war, when the gladiatorial pits on Cybertron began to get popular, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe thought they were just the best thing ever. It was a great way to let off steam after a hard cycle's worth of work. Back then, they seemed so harmless. Sure, one could get pretty banged up if they didn't have the skills to keep up, but that wasn't their problem. Both brothers were good at what they did, taking home far more victories than losses.

Sunstreaker wasn't surprised at his own success. Despite his artistic nature, he always had a violent personality. He was known for taking on mechs much larger than himself just for looking at him wrong. Pounding into a metal body was the way he exorcised his inner demons. Sunstreaker felt like he was built for the ring.

Sideswipe, however, was a surprise. While he had the same speed and prowess of his brother, Sideswipe lacked Sunstreaker's confrontational nature. The yellow Autobot was surprised Sideswipe wanted to fight in the first place, having hardly seen his brother throw a punch in anger his entire lifespan. Sideswipe's personality was wrong for the pits. Sideswipe was too lighthearted and gentle to be a gladiator, or so Sunstreaker thought.

Surprisingly, the red Autobot kept up with his brother, only just a win or two behind him. For a while, it was a blast and Sunstreaker was more concerned about his own rising popularity than what Sideswipe was doing. But then, it felt like it happened almost overnight, Sideswipe caught up and began to surpass Sunstreaker in the ring. That, however, wasn't the problem. Sunstreaker was always game for some healthy competition between his brother, it kept things interesting. The issue was that Sideswipe's matches were becoming more violent. Those who went into the ring with him were carried out, barely functioning. Scouts who ran the illegal death rings on the lower levels were making offers to Sideswipe to come fight for them.

Sunstreaker's biggest regret was how long it took him to notice. He was happy for his brother's success and, at the same time, wrapped up in his own individual popularity. It was merely by chance, Sunstreaker was going through some previous footage when he happened to notice the change. There, on the screen, he saw it on Sideswipe's face when he was fighting. The expression was dead, emotionless, cold. That was not his brother.

After his initial discovery, Sunstreaker watched his twin's fights carefully. Sideswipe seemed to change right before the optic when he stepped into that ring. He went from a warm, friendly individual to a cold machine that did not seem to mind inflicting pain on another. Sideswipe always had a strange, empathetic connection to the world around him that Sunstreaker had never seen in another Cybertronian before. It helped the red Autobot be whatever the situation needed him to be. It made him a good front-liner in the war despite his gentle nature.

In the case of the pits, a brutal, soulless place containing little else beside hate and violence, it was eating the Sideswipe he knew alive. The last straw was the night Sideswipe left the match, his opponent in pieces, and the persona he took while in the ring left with him.

When Sunstreaker saw those cold optics stalk toward him, he knew he had to make a decision. Sideswipe would never leave the ring without his brother. If they stayed there, the change Sunstreaker saw in his red twin may have become permanent. So Sunstreaker left the pits behind him, dragging Sideswipe the whole way. He made his brother promise him he would never go into a gladiator ring again.

"Why?" Sunstreaker floundered. "What did you do it, 'Swipe? Do you really want to go back to the pits so bad that you would sabotage me, your own brother, to do it?"

Sideswipe flinched at the accusation, looking down at the ground. "I didn't want her to hate you."

Sunstreaker paused, trying to follow his brother's logic. "What are you-"

"She can hate me if she wants!" Sideswipe blurted out, suddenly full of emotion. "She already had reason to. So I could be the one who had to take her out and drag her back here. She can hate me for that, too. Then she won't hate you or anyone else for it."

Sunstreaker vented air, placated in the wake of his outburst. What was he supposed to say to that? How could he stay angry now? He kicked at the ground, trying to gather his thoughts.

"So it's really her then, huh?"

"Yeah," Sideswipe confirmed softly. "It's her."

Sunstreaker vented air once more, heavier this time. He shifted, suddenly unsure what to do with that information. "Primus, 'Swipe, how did you know?"

Sideswipe shrugged. "No one fights like she does."

* * *

Firestar wasn't sure why she kept going back. Her business with the Autobot med bay was concluded when the last femme, Roulette, was released with a clean bill of health. However, when she had nothing else to do, she would find herself wandering toward that area again to see if a certain medical officer was in. Firestar wasn't sure what it was about him that kept drawing her over. She was no stranger to the attraction of the opposite gender. Before the war, she had been a major social butterfly and dated more than her share of mechs before the femmes went underground. But none of those mechs were like Ratchet.

She was used to always being one who was chased. The femme to mech ratio, even before the war, ensured she could have any male she set her sights on. In her wilder days, Firestar could string along three or four at a time if she wished and have her pick of the litter. With Ratchet, Firestar had never met a mech who was so neutral around her. It didn't seem to matter to him if she came to visit or not. If she wasn't there, he worked. If she dropped in to say hi, he would merely glance at her and offer a brief greeting before returning to his notes or current patient.

Lately, Firestar had picked up the habit of taking him energon when she passed by. Mechs loved a femme who kept them full. With Ratchet, however, half the time he wouldn't even touch it. There had been times when she came in to find one or two unopened canisters on his desk. That would be when Firestar would bark at him that he needed to take care of himself more. It was only those times when Ratchet would reward her with his full attention and grouch right back at her. It sounded like a heated quarrel to any outsider, but Firestar was loving it.

When the arguing died down, Ratchet would plop himself at his desk and moodily drink one of the containers while Firestar watched to make sure he drank it all. Then the two would settle companionably near each other, sometimes talking, sometimes not. It was a strange way to begin a relationship. Firestar wondered if Ratchet even thought of it like that. He gave no indication to her either way, but merely allowed her presence whenever she stopped by.

It was one of these times, when the two were sitting in his office sharing small talk, when the med bay doors were kicked open. An entire team spilled inside, mechs and femmes alike. Prowl, the Autobot second in command, carried a small body in his arms. Firestar instantly recognized her as the Deceptifemme they had taken in. Her body was damaged and lifeless. Ratchet was on his feet in a second as the body was placed on the nearest table. Others came in and Firestar forgot everything when she saw Chromia walk into the room. The orange femme ran to her lost best friend and hugged her hard enough to make her armor whine.

There was some crying, though neither femme would admit to it afterward. Even more crying when Elita came in with the other rescued femmes. Ironhide, to his lament, got roped into all the hugging and crying and took it silently, standing there like a stoic post until the worst of it was over.

The happy reunion had been some time ago and most of the team, by now, had been cleared out. The newly rescued femmes and Sideswipe were sent to a different med bay, along with Ratchet's assistants, for assessment and repairs. One by one, Ratchet was pinged that each patient was evaluated, repaired where needed, and then released. Ratchet only acknowledged the notice, he had something much more important to attend to.

Prowl and Jazz were the only ones who stayed as Ratchet assessed the body of the black and purple femme on his examining table. The first thing to catch the medic's optic was the scratched paint on the chest, revealing that familiar pink base coat with an Autobot symbol underneath. Ratchet vented heavily when he saw it.

"Primus, what a mess."

"Yes," Prowl agreed. He touched the table, fingers just inches from the body. "Help me make sense of it."

Ratchet vented again. "I'll do my best."

The first thing he did was tend to the worst of the physical damage. Blitzangel's midsection needed massive rewiring which took a good two hours by itself. With that accomplished, the brunt of the wounds were repaired. Then the body was cleaned and stabilized enough so that Ratchet could proceed with a thorough examination. Prowl and Jazz had left to refuel themselves and to report to Optimus. They returned just as Ratchet was ready for the real examination.

"Are you two sure you want to be present for this?" Ratchet asked as he readied the recorder. A copy of his findings would be sent to Earth for Wheeljack and Perceptor.

Jazz nodded.

"I want to know," Prowl said simply.

Ratchet shouldn't have expected any other response from him.

"Alright," the medic said with a sigh in his voice. "Let's do this."

He clicked on a small, bright lamp and hovered it over the body so he could see every detail. Starting at the head, Ratchet began to assess the body, dictating to the recorder as he did so.

"Outer helm design, obviously remodeled." He opened a few panels in the head to check the inner circuitry. "Main processor seems to be mostly in tact psychically. I see a few additions, nothing major. Most likely added for extra memory space. I won't know the extent of the damage or how much reprogramming has been introduced into her system until I can log into her processor. Perceptor, I will be sending you my findings when I'm able to run those tests."

Ratchet moved to her face, tipping the head this way and that to get a good look at it. "Face shape seems a bit different. Nose, I'm not sure. Mouth, definitely. The optics... I'm not sure why they gave her an optic band. That's not a pleasant gut job to remove two optics." He gently removed the band, sliding the long piece of glass out of its socket. "Well this makes a little more sense. I see burn remnants from a laser rifle. It looks like she was shot through the head, right through an optic socket. That explains the extra circuitry in the processor and the optic band." He paused for a moment. "The how and why, of course, not so clear."

From his corner, Prowl shifted, arms crossed over his chest. Jazz noticed his fellow SIC was digging his fingers into his arm. He didn't seem too pleased to hear the medical officer's findings.  
Ratchet replaced the optic band and went lower. "Torso is obviously the same from the old design. Arms are modified. Those blades of hers are quite an interesting feature. I will have to look at those later, carefully." He inspected all the joints. "Right shoulder joint shows evidence of trauma. Looks like it was pulled clean from the body and then reattached."

Ratchet turned off the recorder for a moment. It was hard to stay professional when mental images of Decepticons shooting at and ripping off the limbs of the small body he had built were tormenting him. But there was still a job to do. He cleared his vocalizer and turned the recorder back on.

"Now I'm opening the torso. We'll see exactly what kind of chop job the Decepticons did on her structure." The rest went more like clockwork. Ratchet went through the different parts, naming off which ones were part of the original design and which had been added. He paused when a curious piece of hardware caught his attention.

"And this is..." He paused and stared at it a moment longer. "I'm not sure... what the slag is this?" He grabbed a small tool and began to poke at it. "I don't think I've seen anything like this before. What in the pit does it do?" He prodded at it some more, trying to figure out what systems, if any, the thing was attached to. Maybe he could figure out what purpose it served.

Curious, Prowl and Jazz leaned in closer as well to watch him work. Ratchet discovered a manual switch and turned it on to see what it did. The affect was instantaneous right in the core of all three of their sparks. Suddenly there was a female signature amidst them, pulsing too strong to be ignored. Their bodies reacted instantly.

Prowl and Jazz had already thrown themselves against the back wall, wishing they could get even further away. Ratchet scrambled to turn the device off, his systems running quite warm by the time he was able to get to it. His expression looked far less haunted than that of the two SICs.

"Nasty little trick," the medic growled.

It took Jazz a while to find his voice. His fans were on high, trying to cool down his systems as soon as possible. "That's... quite a good distraction technique."

"That better be all it was used for," Prowl growled.

"Oh Prowl, don't. Don't even talk like that, man," Jazz complained. "I don't even want to think about it."

The three were quiet for a moment.

"I could look," Ratchet offered. "Often there isn't any physical evidence, but I could at least inspect her."

"No," Prowl insisted. "I don't want to cause her any more trauma than she's been through already. Repair her. Get her online. That's all. Once she's awake, we'll figure out where to go from there."

Blitzangel's finger twitched.

"It might take a while," Ratchet said. "I still have to wade through all her programming and find out exactly how much damage has been done to her personality and memories."

She twitched again.

"Um, guys?" Jazz said, trying to get their attention.

Prowl was too focused on the task at hand. "Are we talking about any permanent damage?"

"It all depends on exactly what they did to her. If they just blocked the existing information or if they wiped her core completely before reprogramming her. It's also possible that head injury had something to do with it as well."

Blitzangel shifted on the table.

"Guys!" Jazz barked, pushing Prowl out of the way a second before a blade snapped out right where he was standing.

Ratchet was not so lucky. As he tried to restrain his patient, she swiped at him with her other blade. The medic stumbled back, a gash across the glass of his chest.

Blitzangel jumped to her feet, looking around her, fear obvious on her face. She didn't know this place, nor did she have any idea how she got there. The Autobots were stumbling to their feet. Blitzangel jumped from the table to the counter, back pressed against the wall to try and get away from them.

"Hold on," Jazz called as he got to his feet first. "We're not trying to hurt you."

The look on the femme's face told she thought otherwise. She was searching around frantically for an exit. Her optic band settled on the open doorway at the other side of the room. The Autobots realized far too late her attempt to escape. Blitzangel leaped from the counter, swinging from the light fixture. She kicked off toward freedom, neatly landing in a slide out the open door.

Ratchet was too slow to shut it on her. He wasn't expecting her to come out of stasis on her own or else he would have put the base on higher alert and closed the med bay doors. Now he had no choice, he pressed the alarm.

The klaxon sounded overhead as Blitzangel raced down the corridor. She zipped past surprised Autobots, not paying them any mind. Escape was the only thing she was focused on. Up ahead was a row of large windows. Upon the alert, metal shields began to slide over them. Blitzangel raced to beat them, but she wasn't fast enough. She pounded on the metal shielding, but they were built to withstand full Decepticon air attacks. There would be no escape from here.

The base was on full lock down now. No one was getting in or out until the escapee had been neutralized. Autobots were now running toward her, all much larger than she was. Blitzangel fled down the next hallway, Autobots hot on her heels. Coming up the other direction was yet another group of Autobots, led by none other than Optimus Prime himself. Anger mixed with fear as she was cornered, Autobots to the rear and the front. She took her chances with their commander.

Optimus Prime saw Blitzangel race for his team, blades poised to protect herself. He was now informed of what only a few of his officers had discovered. He knew who she was.

"Autobots, detain her, but do not harm her."

"You sure about that?" Springer asked. "Because she looks like she wants to harm us."

Blitzangel was mere feet away now. She slashed at Optimus, who dodged neatly from the hissing blade.

"Do not harm her," the Autobot leader repeated again.

All Springer could do to follow that order was duck out of the way as the energy blades whooshed very close to his face places. So, too, the other Autobots of the team, were forced merely to clear a path as the lithe femme charged her way through.

It seemed that was all the femme wanted. As the Autobots scrambled out of the way, the hallway cleared enough to let Blitzangel pass. She charged past the team, Optimus Prime the only one who dared chase after her. Down the next hall the two raced, the femme very much aware she had a mech twice her size hot on her heels. But even that didn't distract her when she saw a certain form around the next corner.

Blitzangel had intended on going straight until she saw her target down the corridor to her right. She rebounded off the wall, and then another, skidding down the new direction. Optimus Prime was not as light or as agile as she was. It took him a while to change his course to follow. Blitzangel was already several paces ahead of him, blades poised, target dead center in her sights.

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker had barely walked inside the base when the lock down was set in place. They were extremely out of the loop and trying to figure out what was going on and what they could do to assist. Above all the flashing red lights and warning sirens, the twins only got a mere glance of what was racing toward them before she attacked.

Blitzangel zeroed in on Sideswipe, ignoring Sunstreaker completely. Sideswipe hardly had time to process what was coming at him before a foot collided solidly with his chest. He fell off his feet, sliding on his back along the floor. Blitzangel crouched on top of him, a hateful expression on her face and arm blade raised to strike.

Sunstreaker reacted on reflex. Anything that attacked his brother was automatically his enemy. He threw himself at Sideswipe's attacker and the two wrestled to the floor, Sunstreaker landing on top. Blitzangel struggled beneath his weight as Sunstreaker raised his fist, but stilled it in hesitation. He couldn't bring himself to hit her, not after what he knew. His reluctance cost him. He wasn't sure how she did it, but Blitzangel wriggled free enough to lay a solid kick and Sunstreaker was sent sprawling to the floor.

Before Blitzangel could go after either twin, more Autobots spilled into the hallway. Without alternatives to engage her, the first Autobot to reach her position tackled her, holding her down with his weight. A few more Autobots piled on top of him, effectively pinning the femme beneath them without harming her. Only Blitzangel's head and shoulders plus one arm were free from the Autobot dog-pile.

Despite her odds, she squirmed and jerked, trying to wrest herself from under the weight. Her engines whined and overheated with the duress of the several male bodies touching her, pinning her, crushing her. She desperately clawed at the floor with her one free hand, trying to get away.

"You need to calm down," Ratchet informed her as he stood over the panicked femme. His systems were also running a little high as he had been racing around the base, trying to catch up to her.

Blitzangel just glared at him, her skin wishing it could just curl up and crawl away from everything holding her down.

Optimus Prime was behind the medic and soon came Jazz and Prowl.

"I'm going to have to sedate her so we can get her back to the med bay," Ratchet informed them. He produced a small device which somewhat imitated a syringe. It would inject a recharge command into her system and momentarily shut her down for proper transport.

The tone of Blitzangel's taxed systems grew in intensity when she saw it. Her efforts to escape increased as the Autobots on top of her doubled their efforts to keep her restrained.

Ratchet advanced, his face a mask of stoic professionalism.

"No." She hadn't spoken a word the entire escape attempt, but now they were fleeing from Blitzangel's mouth in desperation. "Don't, please."

Ratchet ignored her, his audios deaf to the usual protests of patients.

Blitzangel watched him draw near in horror. "Please, don't take me offline. Please! Ratchet!"

It was her voice pleading his name that stayed Ratchet's hand. Whatever damage the Decepticon reprogramming did to her, she still knew him. He stood back, looking to his three commanding officers, tight-beaming a message to only them. _So what do you what to do?_

_The question is, if we let her go, what will she do?_ Optimus answered.

Ratchet glanced back down at the agitated femme. He could almost see her muscle cables poised to flee. _If we let her up, she's going to bolt again. I've seen enough times, I'd bet my career on it._

The four Autobots discussed amongst themselves silently for a few moments before Ratchet turned to the femme again. "Alright, here are your options. You let me take you offline, in which I give my word you will not be harmed. I will finish my repairs and you will be free to go. Your second choice is stasis cuffs and a holding cell to make sure you don't go anywhere. What's it going to be?"

Surprisingly, Blitzangel didn't even hesitate when she asked for the cuffs.

* * *

Ratchet referred to it as a ward, but it wasn't fooling anybody. It certainly didn't fool Blitzangel. It may have been on a nicer level with clean floors, a few small windows and some comfortable furniture, but it also had bars and guards posted outside. It was still a prison cell, no matter how it was decorated or what it was called. Blitzangel continued to wear the stasis cuffs, though they were on the lowest setting, allowing her to move about in her room-sized space easily.

After his first observation of her, Ratchet announced the ward to be in quarantine. Certain parties didn't like that word, either. It made it sound like Blitzangel had some sort of disease. However, it gave Ratchet the power to keep other Autobots away from the ward while he conducted his evaluation so he kept the quarantine in place.

So far, Ratchet had been left to do his job freely. Optimus told him he had free reign to do whatever he needed to do. Jazz was strangely quiet about the whole ordeal. Prowl, who quite obviously had a problem with seeing the femme in cuffs and behind bars, kept his distance as well. Ratchet was left completely to his own devices to figure out this new enigma. He just hoped he could help her.

The femme displayed very curious behaviors that the medical officer was still trying to decipher. When left alone, Ratchet observed her on the security cameras. Blitzangel would sit quietly, often her back to the door, as if trying to block out the world. When Ratchet walked into the room, however, her whole demeanor changed.

She was immediately agitated when he entered. Even without saying anything, the longer Ratchet stayed, the more it exacerbated her reaction to his presence. Even so, he sat himself down in a chair a few paces from the cell and observed the purple femme on the other side of the glowing bars.  
Blitzangel seemed to try to ignore his presence for a while, but something wouldn't let her forget the Autobot was in the room. Soon, she was pacing in front of the bars like a caged animal, her engines growing warmer with agitation.

Ratchet calmly watched her travel from one side of the cell to the other for several minutes, data pad in his lap, waiting for notes. "I'm going to be here all day. Let me know when you are ready to talk."

"I don't need to talk," Blitzangel muttered, not slowing her pace. "You need to leave me alone."

"I'm not leaving, I'm trying to help you."

"Help me do what?" Her voice came out like a growl now.

"I can fix you," Ratchet responded pragmatically. "I can help you remember who you are."

Blitzangel stopped in her tracks. She turned to glare through the bars at the medic. "I remember who I am."

Ratchet sat up straighter. "Do you? Why don't you tell me about that?"

Blitzangel moved closer to the bars. "I waited three months for a rescue that never came. And whatever you're doing on Cybertron, I'm sure it wasn't for my sake."

Ratchet was silent.

"You Autobots have been through with me for a while," Blitzangel continued. "Let me go."

"I can't do that," Ratchet said as neutrally as possible.

"If you are trying to help me, then you need to let me go," was Blitzangel's immediate rejoinder.

"You may leave once I repair you," Ratchet informed her.

Blitzangel's engine and her temper suddenly spiked. "Damn you, Ratchet!" She threw herself at the energized bars as if to attack him. "You never listen! I hate you! Let me out of here!"

That was enough to stir the medic out of his calm facade. The bars sparked and hissed as they burned any metal that came in contact with them. Blitzangel was sporting new scorch marks as she thrust her shoulder into the bars again. Her anger grew as she hit the bars with her stasis cuffs, over and over again. She swore and cursed in Cybertronian and English, condemning all Autobots. She spat dark oaths at Ratchet himself, swearing how much she loathed his existence and what she would do to him if she ever got out.

Unable to see any way to reverse the current situation, Ratchet stiffly gathered his things and retreated from the room. The femme's shrill, screaming voice reverberated at his back as the doors locked behind him.

* * *

Prowl tiredly read Ratchet's report of the situation. The medic's first attempt had not been encouraging. It had been a mistake to take Blitzangel into custody as if she were some war criminal. Even if it was what she wanted, Prowl shouldn't have given in to her. They should have sedated her and taken her back to the med bay like the unwell patient that she was. Now, though she wasn't going anywhere behind those bars, it was near impossible to get to her for any type of physical or internal exam. The idea of having to dart her for sedation like a caged animal did not sit well.

Prowl glanced back at his monitor. The system was networked so that he could access any security camera he wished from his personal computer. The only camera he had accessed lately was the one overlooking Blitzangel's cell. Prowl had yet to be able to bring himself to go down there. He wasn't sure he could handle seeing her behind bars shackled in heavy cuffs in person.

Someone buzzed outside his office door, requesting entrance. Prowl was surprised to see the tall form of Elita-One step inside when the door was opened.

"Elita-One," Prowl greeted neutrally. "I was under the impression you were helping Prime oversee the transfer to Earth."

Elita sat herself down before his desk and smoothly crossed her legs. "Optimus is fully capable of seeing to the transfer without me. I was just making sure Arcee has everything in order before she left."

A momentary look of discomfort crossed Elita's features. The young Arcee was a difficult femme to keep up with these days. Though she was young, Arcee had plenty of experience taking care of herself and she was often more responsible than some of the older members of Elita's team. It was the mindset Beta had left her with that kept Elita worrying about Arcee. The young femme was leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of her gender when it came to integrating with the male Autobots. Elita didn't even see it coming when Arcee marched right up to her and brazenly asked for permission to be on the team to transfer to Earth.

The request had floored Elita into near speechlessness. The roster had already been finalized and Arcee was asking to be added to go to a completely different planet before she had fully gotten to know surface life on her own. Elita had quite expected the answer to be no, that no additions were going to be taken to the Earth mission. This was true, however, for some strange reason, Hot Rod had volunteered his place on the Earth mission if Arcee wanted it.

That also came as a surprise. Hot Rod was one of the first mechs Arcee had met. They were near the same age and seemed to get on together quite well. It was strange that she wanted to go if Hot Rod was going to stay. But there was another mech she was becoming familiar with. A larger, slighter older mech named Springer that Arcee was becoming quite enamored with. Hopefully, he would treat her well. There really wasn't much else Elita could do for Arcee at this point, but let the chips fall where they may. Right now she had something else on her processor.

"Then how is it that I can assist you?" Prowl said, getting right to the point. He had never been one for small talk, even when he had time for it. He certainly didn't consider himself having time for it now.

"The femme you have in your custody," Elita responded, also not one to beat around the bush. "I would like to discuss her with you."

Prowl immediately tried to mask his discomfort. He had assumed that if Optimus wanted Elita to know anything more about Blitzangel, he would have told her himself, just as he had disclosed with Ultra Magnus. It was not Prowl's place to discuss this particular individual with Elita, nor did he want to.

"Discuss what exactly?" he asked as he attempted to keep his voice neutral.

"I want to know who she is, Prowl. I know you know. When you volunteered for the mission to Xartin, you went for her, you didn't go to save my femmes."

"Of course I wanted to save them," Prowl insisted. "I would do what I could for any captured Autobot, mech or femme."

Elita wasn't going to let him avoid giving an answer with that comment. "When my femmes found her from before, she had a nasty virus coursing through her system. It nearly took her permanently offline. I watched my medic try to treat her as she cried out in pain. She called for you, Prowl. She wanted you to help her. How do you know her? Who is she?"

Prowl's expression stayed cool. He didn't betray a single thought. "Any information I have on the femme is classified."

"Classified, or personal?"

"Classified." Prowl's tone was insistent. "If you wish to know, you will have to ask Optimus."

Elita shouldn't have been surprised. That was the proper protocol, after all. Certainly Prowl, of all Autobots, would not break protocol for any reason, even personal ones. And Elita was still convinced it was personal. She also wasn't going to begrudge him for doing what he was supposed to do and putting professional consideration above himself.

"My medic was only able to repair her so much before the attack, but she told me that the Deceptifemme had Autobot aggression programmed into her. It becomes active anytime she sees our insignia. The reaction is out of her control."

Prowl let down his stoic mask to look intrigued. "Do you have any documentation on this?"

Elita's expression wilted slightly. "No, unfortunately, every scrap of information we had was lost in the raid, including the medic herself. I'm afraid that's the extent of my knowledge." When Prowl didn't say anything, she continued. "After she was physically repaired, we put her in a holding cell. All she would do was sit in the darkness, back to the world, not making a sound. Chromia reported her behavior was the same way on Xartin."

Prowl glanced to his monitor. After Ratchet had left and Blitzangel calmed down, she retreated to the back of the cell, back to the world, just as Elita had described. It was curious behavior, there had to be a reason for it. He would have to report this to Ratchet.

"Thank you for the information, Elita. I am sorry I could not respond in kind."

"We'll just say you owe me one," Elita smiled as she stood to leave.

* * *

Sunstreaker was not allowed down there, hardly anyone was, unless preapproved to be on sentry duty outside the ward. But Sunstreaker didn't care about the rules, he rarely did. He had something more important on his mind. The halls of this particular level weren't heavily trafficked. Sunstreaker saw only one other Autobot on his way down. Good. The entire level was quiet save for some male voices coming directly from the target location.

The yellow Autobot approached, curious as the voices became louder. That curiosity quickly turned to anger when Sunstreaker stepped to the threshold to find the door wide open. The two autobots assigned to stand guard outside the doorway had found it much more worth their time to amuse themselves by jeering at the caged femme within.

"Look at the big, bad Decepticon now," one of them laughed. "Not so dangerous without your seeker buddies to back you up, are you? I heard you were something to be feared on the battlefield, but you're just an itty-bitty thing, aren't you?" When Blitzangel did not speak or even turn around he added, "Not much of a talker either, are you?"

"I bet I could get her to make some noise," the second, larger guard grinned as he watched the femme's back hungrily. "I heard Deceticons don't even like femmes. They wouldn't know what to do with one if it fell in their laps. You should let a real mech play with those circuits and show you how I properly satisfy-"

He was cut off as a tall, yellow body slammed him face first into the wall.  
"What the slag?" the big Autobot sputtered.

"You're not supposed to be here!" The shorter one demanded.

"And you're not supposed to be talking to the patient," Sunstreaker said with a slight growl in his voice.

"Patient?" the smaller guard snorted. "You mean prisoner. They're only treating her like this because she's a femme. No matter the gender, she's still a dirty Decepticon. She should be down in the hole, not in this fancy place."

Sunstreaker grabbed the mech he had pressed against the wall and pushed his bulk into the smaller one, kicking him in the back and causing both to fall through the doorway.

"Get out," he growled.

Both Autobots were instantly back on their feet, looking ready to start a tussle with the unidentified yellow Autobot.

"Us get out?" the bigger Autobot demanded. "Who the frak gave you authorization to be down here? Who is your commanding officer so we know who to send your chassis to when we're finished with it?"

Sunstreaker did not back down from the advancing Autobots, his temper clear on his face. "You want my commanding officer?" he challenged. "Optimus fragging PRIME is my commander! I have his personal frequency! Do you want to talk to him and tell him what you slaggers have been doing?"

The mechs' optics grew wide. No wonder they didn't recall seeing Sunstreaker before. He was one of the Earth Autobots, Prime's elite. With some hasty excuses, the two Autobots fled the ward and quickened themselves down the hall. Sunstreaker glared after their retreat and then turned his attention within.

The first thing he looked for was the security camera. Those slaggers he just chased away had been too smart to do their harassing too far in the room. The camera wouldn't have caught them, it was centered mainly on the holding cell. Otherwise Prowl would have already had their skid plates for breakfast.

Sunstreaker had seen Prowl walking down the hall toward the med bay, no doubt to talk to Ratchet. That left his ever-vigilant optics otherwise occupied instead of monitoring the security feed. The second he saw Prowl was away from his office, Sunstreaker bee-lined straight for the ward. It was probably his only chance to get this close without getting caught. Now, if he could just talk to the small form hunched behind those bars, Sunstreaker was certain if he could converse with her, he could make a difference.

* * *

Blitzangel's entire world was comprised of two things: ones and zeros. Whatever happened outside didn't matter to her. It was too hard to concentrate when she was aware of her surroundings. The truth of where she was trapped smothered her until it felt overwhelmed and panicked. Her only escape was to sit herself in a corner and turn her focus inward to continue with her own internal programming repairs.

Countless patterns of ones and zeros scrolled across her consciousness. Finding the damaged bits, the ones out of place, the ones alien to her original self was a tedious task. It was like a thousand yards of thread all wound up in a knotted ball and she could only pick at bits and pieces at a time, trying to unravel it all. It was a time-consuming process, one that had kept her busy while passing away time in the female Autobot holding cells, the Xartinian arena, and now under Autobot custody.

It often seemed like she had plenty of time to work, but in reality, there was always something in the way: alien abductions, nightly matches, and now her recent annoyance: Autobot guards chattering insults at her newest cage. At least with this distraction, she could choose to ignore it. Blitzangel turned her audios down to block out enough noise to help her concentrate. With her back to the bars, she knew little of what was going on behind her until another voice spoke to her clearer, closer, familiar.

"Hey Crys, it's me. It's Sunstreaker."

Blitzangel inwardly blanched at the sound. Too many distractions. There was always something trying to pull her away from her task. She didn't dare look behind her. Just seeing an Autobot made her temper flare, detracting time and attention from her goal. She turned her audios all the way off so she wouldn't have to hear him.

* * *

"Hey, Crys, it's going to be okay, alright?" Sunstreaker continued, getting as close to the energy bars as he could. He didn't care who noticed him on the security cameras. "Look, I'm sorry about the last time we met. I didn't know it was you. I didn't know the Decepticons..." He clenched his fists in frustration, unable to finish the sentence. "Listen, the guys know, Prime, Prowl, Jazz, they know it wasn't your fault. Nobody is blaming you. But you need to talk to us so we can help you."

The femme in the cell didn't move, didn't even flinch at his words. It was as if she didn't hear him at all. It was strange to see her up close. Those wings on her back, the sharp planes of her body, she was so unfamiliar to look at. The old Crystal was in there somewhere, she had to be.

"Crystal." Sunstreaker spoke louder, trying to gain her attention. "I'm here for you. I want to help you. Just... just tell me what I need to do to fix this and I'll do it. Please, tell me."

The femme didn't move. Sunstreaker wished the bars weren't energized so he could shake them until the cell rattled. This was so frustrating. She didn't even seem to be hearing him. How was he going to get through to her?

There was a rumble coming from outside, the sound of heavy space vessel engines coming in for a landing. The booming sound became heavier as the ship closed in on Iacon. It was descending toward a nearby launch pad, the engines so close now it made the windows rattle. Sunstreaker glanced out the window. The shuttle didn't look familiar and it lacked any markings identifying it as an Autobot ship. Interesting. He wondered who it was.

He wasn't the only one wondering. A quick glance to the cell and Sunstreaker noticed that Blitzangel was peering out her tiny, barred window as well. Even if her adios were turned off, she couldn't ignore the vibrations of the shuttle's mighty engines as it landed. Now she was watching it settle to the landing pad below and all her systems were back to running normal. Blitzangel knew that ship, she had seen it once before on Xartin, only a few days before she was taken back to Cybertron.

Blitzangel was suddenly consumed with a new task. She glanced over at the yellow Autobot on the other side of the bars, unaware her gaze made his fuel pump skip when she finally looked at him. The words she spoke to him were not ones Sunstreaker was prepared for.

"Let me out of here."

Sunstreaker stared at her, dumbfounded. Of all the things he felt prepared to do for her, this wasn't one of them. There wasn't a commanding officer in the base who wouldn't have his smoking frame on a platter if he did that.

Blitzangel tried not to look at him too much. Her optic band would zero in on that red insignia painted boldly on his chest. She couldn't think when she saw that mark, anger would cloud her actions. How could she make him understand she needed to get away from him, from all of them, until she could fix this problem? She couldn't exist safely here until her programming was repaired.

"I NEED to get out of here," Blitzangel insisted. "I can't stay here, Sunstreaker, please."

She used his name. It hurt to hear his name in that different voice. She kept glancing away from him, shaking her head, flinching, as if there were something wrong with her. She didn't need escape, she needed to see a medic. How could she ask this of him?

"Crystal, you need to stay here. You need to let someone help you."

Hearing him say that name, it made her engines growl, it made her temper suddenly spike. If he wasn't going to help her, he needed to leave. The urge to tear up the yellow Autobot was growing stronger.

"If you're not going to let me out then get out of here," she growled.

Sunstreaker actually stepped back at the sudden aggression in her voice. "But... I'm just trying..."

"I can't stand in it here! In this cell, in this city, I need out of here!"

Desperation was growing in her voice through the anger. Sunstreaker understood that emotion. He remembered times he felt the walls closing in, like his surroundings were suffocating him. But he couldn't let her go. There was no way he could do this for her.

Despite this, the energy bars went dead and the door clicked open. Sunstreaker backed up as the cuffed femme stepped out. His mouth moved up and down, speechless. But Blitzangel wasn't looking at him, there was someone behind him in the doorway.

Blaster was there, a small remote in his hands. He pushed the main button on the device and Blitzangel's cuffs switched off, falling to the floor.

"Go," Blaster said to the quizzical femme. "If that's what you really need to do, then go."

Blitzangel only spared a glance between the two mechs before she zeroed in on the larger window outside the cell. Just a few steps and she charged through it, shattering the glass with her body. The shards flew with her, out into the open air. Sunstreaker watched as she somersaulted gracefully among the tall spires of Iacon. Then then lithe body straightened into a dive and shot toward the ground, thrusters on. Sunstreaker and Blaster both rushed to the window, but by the time they were able to gaze down, there was no sign of her.

Sunstreaker instantly turned his frustration on the only other being in the room. "What the frag are you doing here? How-how did you even-"

Blaster flicked the stasis cuff remote in the air and caught it again. "I have security clearance, remember? Also, I was the one on monitor duty, which is how I knew you were down here."

That just made the yellow Autobot angrier. "I don't give a slag heap what your clearance is, why did you let her go? I was trying to get her to agree to let the doc help her and you fragged it all up!"

"Oh yeah, I saw how well she was listening to you," Blaster replied calmly. "The way I see it, you guys were the ones to frag it up first. If she wants help somewhere else, she has to right to go get it. I'm not going to stand in her way. And I'm sure as slag not going to let her rot in this cell. Prime, Prowl, and anyone else can do what they want to me. At least I actually did something for her."

Sunstreaker glared at him, but didn't have a reply. The room was flooded with Autobot soldiers a moment later.

* * *

Drift wasn't always happy to dock on Cybertron. He would often avoid the planet if he could help it. One never knew the condition it would be in when one dropped by. Sometimes the airways would be restricted, depending on how heavy the Decepticon activity was at the moment. If they were on the prowl, Drift and his ship would be subjected to all sorts of searches and protocol when he landed. But the Autobots would always allow him to land, even if he was a neutral, so he couldn't really be too picky. He wouldn't get anywhere near the same consideration from the Decepticons. Cybertron wasn't his ideal place to visit, but there were very few other places in the universe where one could get certain Cybertronian parts but Cybertron, so Drift was forced to visit every few hundred years or so.

This time was not unlike any other. Though he had an existing dialogue with the Autobots, they still searched his ship and assigned him a liaison to keep an eye on him while he was in their city. Drift tolerated it. He had no ulterior motives he needed to hide. He just required the items on his shopping list and he would be quickly on his way.

The speed a which Drift was finished, this time, pleasantly surprised him. Was it just him, or were the Autobots running at quicker efficiency these days? Maybe the Decepticons off-lined a few of the old commanders and new, faster models had taken over. Oh well, not his business. Drift was happy to get off this planet, the sooner the better.

He strapped himself into the pilot seat, acknowledging the Autobot tower's permission for lift off. His shuttle rumbled and shook as the strong jets designed to break a planet's atmosphere roared to life. All lights were green and the tower gave the go ahead for take off. Something in the back engine rattled, causing Drift to frown. He wasn't going to back to Cybertron to fix that. He would find another repair depot.

The shuttle shot into the air, climbing higher into the sky. Drift was ready to settle in for another long, quiet excursion through space. That is, until his instruments signaled a warning that something had attached itself to the side of his shuttle. That something was now prying the door open. Drift turned to switch on the auto pilot as he reached for a small firearm under the seat. While he preferred his blades in combat, the shuttle did not have enough room for a sword fight. Just as he was turning the energy weapon on, the small frame stumbled inside, the door slamming back shut behind her.

Drift just stared, arm still pointed out, weapon aimed at her from behind his pilot seat.

"You!" he blurted, composure gone in his surprise. "What are you doing-how did you get on Cybertron?" He watched her, optics wide as she made her way over to the extra seat and sat herself down.

"Why?" Was all he could add to his list of questions.

Blitzangel looked at him with some uncertainty. "You said there was a place for me on your ship," she reminded.

"Yeah but... I didn't mean right now! I thought it wouldn't be until, you know, later."

"Fine," Blitzangel huffed as she slumped in her seat. "Just take me to whatever's the nearest planet and dump me off. I don't care. Just as long as I'm far away from here."

Drift lowered the weapon he had momentarily forgotten he had been holding aloft. He knew that sentiment about Cybertron well. He returned his firearm to its place and turned back to the controls. "I'm not stopping for a while. I guess you'll just have to come with me."

There was a beeping on his instrument panel.

"Hm, it looks like the Autobots are sending me an emergency return signal." Drift glanced at Blitzangel. "Think that might be for you?"

"Probably is," she said as she vented air.

Drift grinned and pushed the engines harder. The shuttle jetted out of the planet's gravity and into open space. "Wave bye-bye to Cybertron, beautiful. We're not coming back any time soon."


	10. Chapter 10: The Long Way Home

Their construction was finished. Three shells, each of similar design with long legs and sharp wings, were produced from the bowels of the floating, living planet. The designs were taken from those who were last on his asteroid before it was demolished. They would serve his purposes.

The optics of his three creations were dark, but something deep within the planet hummed and life spread into the previously empty metal husks. Their optics glowed red with power as they experienced their first moments of existence.

_My children,_ a voice reverberated in their heads, in their very souls. _You are now my eyes and ears. Find that which I seek. Go._

The three new bodies looked upon the hulking mass of their creator and nodded. They ignited their thrusters and flew off into the blackness of space, only one mission on their processors.

Rising Generations

Chapter 10: The Long Way Home

Blaster sat calmly on the floor, caged in one of the lower levels of the Autobot base. Sunstreaker seethed. The orange radio was very lucky there were energy bars separating him from his enraged comrade.

"I'm going to kill you," Sunstreaker vowed as he paced around in the cell opposite Blaster's. "When I get out of here, I'm going to scrap you dead. I'm not lying. You are a dead bot when I get out of here. I didn't even let her out and they put ME down here? With you! This is ridiculous! You're a dead bot walking Blaster, you hear me?"

Blaster appeared to be only mildly paying attention. All he did was stare at the energy bars as if their dancing lights mesmerized him. His processor wasn't so much on the present, but reminiscing on the past.

"Blaster! You hear me, you slagger?" Sunstreaker barked as he grabbed the bars. It only scorched his hands, again. "You dumb glitch! Listen to me!" Sunstreaker kicked at the bars, merely burning the paint on his feet now.

Blaster seemed a million miles away. But at last, his gaze drifted from the bars to land on the angry Autobot.

"She didn't want our help, Sunstreaker. I had been on monitor duty the entire time. I could see it. Whatever she's looking for, whatever she needs, it's not here. I know it hurts to realize that, man, but it's the truth and I know you know it, too. At least now she's free from Decepticons and free from cages. You can take comfort from that."

Sunstreaker was quiet, but the frown never left his face. "I'm still going to punch you when I get out of here."

* * *

"Prowl, will you just sign the damn request already?" Jazz demanded, thrusting a data pad in his fellow SIC's face.

"Your signature should be sufficient," Prowl responded coolly.

"Prime said he's not going to do it unless we both give our okay," Jazz pleaded.

"Then I'm sorry. I'm not going to be a part of this."

Jazz set his mouth in a stubborn line. "Prowl, what the slag is your problem? Before this, I couldn't get you to stop chasing that femme. Now you want nothing to do with getting her back? I just need this shuttle to go after her. If you're done chasing, that's fine. I'll do it this time."

"No," Prowl insisted. "We're done."

Jazz positioned himself in front of Prowl, blocking his way down the hall. "So when you decide you want to hunt her down to the ends of the galaxy at the risk of your own health it's fine, but when we actually know who she is and where she's going, you want no part of it? Is it because I'm taking the lead? I'm scheming on your shtick now, is that it?"

"No," Prowl said simply as he pushed past Jazz and continued down the hall. "Before, it was different. She was in danger and we rescued her. This time, she left of her own volition. If leaving Cybertron on that ship was what she truly wanted, then I will not go to any lengths to take her away from it. And I'm not signing that request. I won't be changing my mind."

Prowl continued on, leaving a frustrated Jazz alone in the hall.

* * *

The main medical bay had been closed far too long, in Firestar's opinion. The smaller auxiliary bays were open on the lower levels, but the main facility remained dark and the doors shut. Yet there was still someone inside. Firestar found him sitting in the darkness, the only light coming from a small lamp on his desk. There were several empty cans piling up around him.

"So, NOW you drink all the energon I left for you," Firestar accused before even bothering to greet him.

Ratchet looked at her from under his crest, a small frown on his face. He said nothing and returned his attention to the clear glass in his hands. He watched the liquid moodily as he swirled it around.

Firestar came around behind the desk without invitation and inspected the new canister he had been drinking from. It was several grades higher than the regular energon he had consumed previously.

"Care to share with me why you feel the need to drown your sorrows?" Firestar asked, her tone not sounding too impressed.

Ratchet didn't feel like saying anything. He just wanted to watch the glow from the energon as it swished around, and he wanted to be left to sit in silence in the dim light.

"Not going to say anything to me, huh?" Firestar challenged. "Not that you ever have much to say anyway aside from barking orders. I swear, you have to be the most unpleasant mech I have ever been around."

Ratchet slowly looked up at the indignant femme, her hands on her full hips. The light of his blue optics drifted from light to dim, indicating he was too over-energized to keep his systems steady.

"What do you want me to say, Firestar?" he asked in a low, tired voice. "I don't know what you want from me."

Firestar sat down in front of his desk. "I'll take whatever you'll give me."

Ratchet looked annoyed and downed the rest of his glass. He filled it up again while Firestar remained sitting, not voicing a single objection to his actions.

Ratchet slowly nursed his next refill, not saying a word. For a while, it almost seemed like he had forgotten Firestar was still there, waiting.

"I wanted to be a creator. That's why I studied to become a medic," Ratchet quietly told his glass. "Back then, we still had the technology to create sparks. I wanted, more than anything, to know what it was like to bring new life into this world. Even to this day, I remember how badly I wanted it. I was still learning the trade when the elders began to disappear."

Ratchet sank lower at his desk, watching his glowing glass, a bitter smile on his face. "No one seemed to care at first. Everyone thought we could still create new sparks without them. Not a single one thought to investigate where those old bots had gone or what had happened to them. As a people, we thought ourselves invincible back then. Nothing could have happened to them, or us. They must have just... gone somewhere."

The medic downed the last of his high grade and rested his chin on his arm, still watching his empty glass. "I don't know where they went, but their disappearance signaled the downward spiral of our society. Even those who thought they knew the ways of Vector Sigma could not put new sparks into the shells we created. By the time I was certified, the technology was gone forever."

"Ratchet, I'm sorry," Firestar said softly.

"There's more to it than just building a shell," Ratchet went on as if she hadn't said a thing. "There's teaching, growing, sharing life with something that's a part of you. I thought, with the Dinobots, it would be like that. But they didn't want anything from me."

Firestar mouthed the unfamiliar word to herself. She had no idea what he was talking about.

"With her, it was different," Ratchet continued. "I wasn't just building her from scratch; she wanted to know what I knew. She tried to be a part of me, a part of us. Even though I seemed to fight it, I was happy." His optics flickered. "Then the Decepticons got hold of her. They refitted her with wings and thrusters and blades... and hatred. And I'm helpless and... tired..."

Firestar thought hard as a new notion came to her processor. "Wait, are you talking about the Deceptifemme? ...Ratchet?"

She looked up to find the medical officer passed out into recharge, his head and arms resting on his desk. Firestar vented air as she leaned over the other side to watch him more closely. She flicked at the grey crest on his helm.

"What am I going to do with you?"

* * *

Drift steered the shuttle through the vast silence of space, the rumble of the engines the only noise reaching his audios. He was used to long distances between planets, but he was unused to the silence. Usually, he would have something ready to fill the void with noise, but at the moment, he wasn't sure if he should. He had never had a passenger before. Certainly not one who was doing what his was doing right now.

As the two of them left the vicinity of Cybertron and its moons, Drift could almost see a weight lift off his new companion's shoulders. Her posture relaxed and she curled up in the chair next to his as if finally allowed to rest after a very, very long time. A few minutes passed and Drift glanced at her again. Her optic band was off and her body was lifeless. The white mech actually got up to check to make sure she was still alive. He scanned her body to find all her systems still fully functioning. But when he spoke to her, he didn't get any response.

Drift shrugged it off and let her be. With as much as she seemed to have gone through lately, a little rest was well-deserved. It gave him some time to get used to another body in the room, anyway.

* * *

Blitzangel liked the deep lull of the shuttle. It was comforting. The further they rocketed away from the metal planet, the more at peace she felt. Cybertron was such a source of confusion for her, full of both negative and positive thoughts and feelings, all fighting for control in her head. She had spent so long just surviving, it was hard to do anything else.

Even in the Autobot base where she knew deep down she was safe, she couldn't relax. It was just like when they had chased her down, when several heavy bodies had to pin her to the ground to keep her from moving. They didn't understand that she felt like that all the time she was there. It was like an invisible pressure beating down on her, making her desperate to get away. All those familiar, expectant faces looking at her, wanting something from her that she couldn't give. Any time she looked at them, that red insignia took over her thoughts. The only thing she could communicate was frustration and rage and the desire to leave. That display just made the Autobots want to hold onto her more tightly. They didn't know how badly she was suffocating, drowning in their presence. They didn't realize how much she needed to get away from them, to figure her own way out.

To be out in space, not as a captive, but merely a passenger on an unknown voyage, was a relief beyond words. No cages, no fighting, no danger, no pressure. Blitzangel was finally allowed to just be, on her own terms. Her companion, this white Cybertronian without allegiance, was like no one else she had run across. His lack of insignia gave her a peacefully neutral feeling when she saw him. A great burden was lifted from her and Blitzangel was finally able to rest. She slipped off to sleep for the first time in weeks, maybe months. Myriad scrambled memories replayed themselves out of order in her head, but she continued to sleep fitfully until the shuttle landed.

Once docked, Drift approached the sleeping femme again. "Hey, uh... we've landed. Time to come online again," he tried.

Very carefully, he tapped her shoulder. When that didn't work, he gave her a small shake.  
As soon as Blitzangel felt hands upon her, her optic band flicked on and her arm blades snapped out to defend herself before she could even recall where she was. Luckily, Drift was already well out of reach, fully prepared to receive such a reaction. Even without causing any damage, Blitzangel felt bad. It was not a good first impression to bestow on her benefactor.

"Sorry," she said, head down.

"No, no, I understand. Trust me," Drift insisted. "It's the lifestyle we lead. I'm a bit of a jumpy bot myself." He smiled at her. "Come on, we're docked. Let's go walk around a bit. It may be a while before we stop again."

The place they landed was some sort of floating space port, not another planet. It was a circular disk with a clear dome to keep in the breathable particles for the organics. It also gave a lovely view of the stars around them. The place seemed to be a kind of open flea market, though a bit on the dingy, shady side, Blitzangel thought.

"Oh yeah," Drift confirmed when she shared her opinion. "Most of these guys are pirates. I'm sure a lot of this stuff wasn't necessarily acquired through legal means. That's why it's so cheap," he added with a grin.

"Is it wise to leave the shuttle unattended in a place like this?" she then wondered.

"Believe me, no one wants a Cybertronian shuttle. They aren't built with any air locks- uninhabitable for organics. Oh, here's the place I'm looking for."

Drift steered them through a few different booths and displays before they reached a station which sold what appeared to be piles and piles of data disks. Blitzangel had never seen any of the alien species working the booth before. It was refreshing to see something that didn't dredge up a bad memory. Despite the current environment, she felt quite content to wander around as long as Drift wanted.

"Drift," the alien at the booth greeted him. "Looking for some new disks already?"

"Jek," Drift replied in the alien's native language. "Good to see you. You know I'm always stuck in that ship for a very long time. I need something to listen to or I'll go crazy."

Blitzangel understood both just fine, despite the fact that they were speaking a language she had never heard before. It was all thanks to the language translator Galdamesh had insisted she be fitted with shortly before the Autobots pulled her off Xartin. Normally, a new translator would merely allow her the ability to catch onto new languages quicker than what was naturally possible, but Blitzangel's was a used model. There were already many languages on it when it was installed, so she understood the conversation instantly.

She had to admit that the gadget was quite useful, though the actual installation wasn't a fond memory. Several of Galdamesh's flunkies had to hold her down while the gadget was installed. Then they had to force a reboot on her while she was still conscious because she wouldn't allow them to take her offline for the installation. The thought made her shudder a bit. Alien hands on her, holding her down, inside her. Other living machines may have been used to it, but she was not.

"So I really liked this new disk you gave me last time," Drift continued as he produced said disk. "I pretty much replayed it until it won't play any more. You got anything else from that planet?"

"Sure, I got plenty of-" Jek paused when he noticed Blitzangel and his three eyes widened, body going stiff. "Uh, we don't sell anything like that, I don't know what you're talking about. You didn't get that disk from me."

Confused at the sudden shutdown, Drift looked over at Blitzangel and finally noticed the partial Autobot insignia exposed on her chest.

"Oh, relax, Jek, she's ex-Autobot."

Blitzangel covered the insignia with a hand. "Extremely ex-Autobot," she insisted in his language. Even the mention of the word made her irritated. She had also forgotten she had their mark on her.

Jek looked uncertain until Blitzangel confirmed it with a bitterness in her voice he believed. Drift leaned forward to speak to the alien in a lower tone. "Listen, you got any black paint back there? We need to cover this up."

Jek smiled at the two and motioned them back in his tent, sending someone else, a different species of alien, to watch the front table. Once out of sight from the general public, Jek produced a small canister of paint and a brush. Blitzangel allowed Drift to touch up the black triangle at her collar so the Autobot insignia was fully covered again, as well as what was left of the Decepticon symbol above it.

"So you liked that music I gave you, huh?" Jek said as he came back over to them with several disks in his hands. "I told you, Drift, very interesting planet. Completely uninfluenced by any other music in the galaxy."

"Music?" Blitzangel wondered as she looked at Jek. "You're radio pirates?"

"Merely collectors with eclectic tastes, my dear. Connoisseurs dedicated to spreading different cultures among the multiverse."

"Connoisseurs without copyrights," Drift grinned at Blitzangel.

"Well, this particular planet doesn't even know the rest of the universe exists. So they don't necessarily have intergalactic copyright laws anyway," Jex said, handing Drift a few disks. "Have a listen at these selections."

Drift eagerly took the top disk and slid it into a slot on his own chest. He tipped his head as he listened to the internal music only he could hear. "Yeah, more of this. You wanna listen?" He offered a disk to Blitzangel.

She looked at herself. "Uh, I don't think I have a place to put that."

Drift didn't even hesitate when he pulled an audio plug out of his side and offered it to her. "Here, have a listen."

Blitzangel took it, still a bit wary of the ways of living machines. Yet, at the same time, almost by instinct, she knew exactly where to plug it and pressed it into the small port on the side of her head. Music instantly flowed into her audios from within. Blitzangel's mouth fell open at the very familiar language.

"This... this is English! This music is from... Earth!"

"Oh, you're familiar with it, huh?" Drift asked, intrigued.

"It's Michael Jackson."

Drift's face lit up. "Look at this, Jek. I have me a specialist." He put his old disk in front of Blitzangel's nose. "Find me more selections like these."

Drift, apparently, liked 80's rock: bands like Def Leppard, AC/DC, and Whitesnake. He also had a thing for Michael Jackson. Jek didn't have the biggest selection, but she compiled what she could find and Drift left a happy mech.

Blitzangel was still a bit awed at the coincidence. The one Cybertronian she found just happened to have a penchant for English Earth music. It hit her hard and left Blitzangel stunned and blank, even as they retired from the small shopping hub and took off for space again. How long had it been since she had thought of Earth? It almost felt like she was thinking about another lifetime-someone else's memories.

"Pour some sugar on meeeee! All in the name of love!" Drift sang with the music as he jumped and slid on his knees in the small cabin. He seemed unconcerned that he was no longer traveling alone. Apparently, this mech danced like no one was watching, no matter who was with him.

"All in the name of love! Pour some sugar on me!"

He played one of his swords like a guitar.

Blitzangel felt numb as a wave of déjà vu hit her. Wasn't there another time she was in a Cybertronian shuttle, floating through space? She had sat there, stunned like this, while music familiar to her felt very preternatural within the alien surroundings. Was that something that really happened? Did it really happen to her?

"Hey, what's wrong?" Drift asked as he loomed over her chair. "I thought you liked this music. Do you not enjoy it?"

_Do you enjoy taking the lives of that many Autobots? _Starscream's voice automatically reverberated in her head. _Do you enjoy anything at all?_

Blitzangel shook her head, trying to rid it of the mental image of the Decepticon air commander and his sharp, red optics boring into her.

"You do that a lot," Drift observed. "Why are you always shaking your head? Do you have something loose up there?"

Blitzangel slumped and vented some air. "Perhaps a screw or two loose. It sure feels like it sometimes." She wasn't sure if Drift understood the double meaning. "I have memory damage. Everything is... scrambled, out of order. They pop up at random. It's..." She put a hand to her head. Sometimes it felt like there were things her processor wanted to think about, but she just couldn't figure out what they were. "It's distracting."

"Ah, so that's why you shut down earlier. Your body's trying to fix itself," Drift surmised. "Did it get damaged in the ring?"

A brief look of pain crossed Blitzangel's face, the first real emotion Drift had ever seen on her features.  
"No," she said softly. "It's been- *I* have been damaged for a long time."

For the first time, Blitzangel felt something weighing on her, something that was far heavier than all the challenges she had faced. She was broken; she admitted it out loud. She felt like an old toy, thrown away by cruel masters who no longer wanted a doll that was dingy and dented and malfunctioning.

"There's nothing wrong with damage," Drift broke her out of her melancholy with a smirk. "Damage can always be repaired. And what can't be repaired makes you all that more interesting."

Blitzangel offered a weak smile in return, fiddling with the object she still had in her hands. She had not let it go since Drift had bought it for her at Jek's music booth.

Drift's optics wandered down to her nervous fingers. "You want to listen to that?"

Blitzangel opened her mouth in defense. What was on this disk wasn't exactly congruent to Drift's usual musical taste. It was a bit out of place with his Bon Jovi and his Poison and his "Pour some sugar on me". (Blitzangel was sure he didn't fully understand the lyrics. He just liked the tune.)

"I.. don't really think you'd like it.." Blitzangel floundered lamely. "It's not like your other songs. We don't really need to listen-."

Drift snatched it out of her hands. "Nonsense. A femme with your knowledge of Earth culture music, I was dying to know, if I let you pick one song for yourself, which one it would be. So let's see what you have."

Blitzangel was still stretching feebly for the disk that was no longer within reach. It had already been inserted into the shuttle's system and she waited in horror. She shouldn't have picked that song. She didn't want to hear it. She didn't want to think about what that song reminded her of. Out of all the muddled information running around in her thoughts, this one memory remained clean and clear.

Blitzangel could still see her face, she could still hear that voice singing this song whenever she had a bad day. Even if Blitzangel couldn't completely recall how she came from there to this point, she remembered this person as clearly as if she were standing right next to her. Blitzangel recalled how she often she tried to disassociate herself with the woman's beliefs, with her way of life. And yet, despite her efforts, her mother's words still haunted her. Everything is connected. Everything happens for a reason.

Thus, Blitzangel found herself on this alien ship, floating through space, galaxies away from her planet of origin. And still, it felt like her mother could find her anywhere she ran. The woman was right beside her, speaking through the melodic voice of Alohe Jean Burke as the music began.

_Ooh-oo child, things are gonna get easier  
Ooh-oo child, things'll get brighter_

Blitzangel's shaking hands clenched the armrest of her chair.

_Some day, yeah  
We'll put it together and we'll get it all done  
Some day  
When your head is much lighter  
Some day, yeah  
We'll walk in the rays of a beautiful sun  
Some day_  
_When the world is much brighter_

Drift listened thoughtfully to the music. No, it wasn't like his usual selections. There was something... soulful about this type of song. He could relate to the words, just a little bit. He turned his head to tell Blitzangel he kind of liked the music, only to see the femme curled up in her chair, her face in her knees, arms around her legs.

Drift kept his thoughts to himself and didn't say a word.

_Right now  
You just wait and see how things are gonna be  
Right now..._

* * *

Time passed differently in space than it did on any planet. There were no minutes, no hours, no night and day. There was just distance. The music helped pass the time, but the two travelers found themselves searching for other things to keep them busy. Blitzangel soon discovered the small room where the piloting controls were stationed was only a fraction of the modest-sized shuttle. The larger part of its bulk comprised a cargo hold. When not filled with cargo, Drift would set the shuttle on autopilot and use the area to keep his fighting skills sharp. It was a nice change to actually have someone to spar with.

Blitzangel enjoyed it as well. Sitting around listening to Earth music was slowly driving her crazy. She needed something else to do instead of being left to meditate on the past and all her jumbled memories. It felt good to have something positive to occupy her time.

These sparring sessions weren't quite as intense as the last one they had on Xartin. Drift wasn't crunched for time, trying to drive home a lesson in only a few hours. They kept it light, having fun discovering what each of them could do. This time, it was blade against blade, Drift with the swords he always kept at his side and Blitzangel with her energized arm blades.

"So, what is with the Autobot symbol, exactly?" Drift asked as their blades clashed with a crackling of energy.

Blitzangel held the attack for a moment and then slid out of reach. "Why?" she asked with a guarded tone. "Does it matter?"

"No," Drift said lightly as he slashed at her again. "It's just that I was under the impression you were Decepticon." He ducked as Blitzangel kicked at his head. "So which one is it?"

"Neither!" Blitzangel barked with another kick. Then she softened, ceasing her attack. "Or maybe both." She gave a weak shrug. "I... I don't know any more."

"Sounds interesting," Drift said as he sheathed his swords. He looked like he was getting ready for a story.

Blitzangel was not in the mood to oblige. "You're a lot nosier than I thought you would be. I don't ask you about your personal business."

Drift gave a nonchalant gesture. "What do you want to know?"

Blitzangel balked. Perhaps she had been jumping to conclusions when she assumed her new travel partner was going to be one of those silent wanderers with the mysterious past. But then again, she already knew about Drift's time spent in the rings of Xartin. He had been fighter for a very long time and then he was allowed to go free. Now he was, just like his namesake, a drifter among the stars and that was all there was to him.

Blitzangel was still trying to come up with a response when the ship shuddered and pinged from somewhere down below. She had been aware there were odd noises coming from the shuttle for a while, but it was never this bad.

Drift frowned. "I hope that engine holds. I forgot to get it looked at while we were at the market."

It had been a wonder he had remembered anything while at the market, he was so excited about his new music. Blitzangel recalled his optics lighting up like a child. No, he certainly wasn't like those clichéd dark, mysterious strangers at all.

"I could take a look at it," the femme offered. "Do you have any tools?"

Drift just stared at her, an unintelligible expression on his face.

"What?" she demanded.

"I love you."

Blitzangel huffed out some air.

"No really," he insisted. "My spark, it is yours."

* * *

**Several Months Later**

The massive claw crashed between them and the two robotic beings dodged before it tore them apart.

"You said this would be an easy job!" Blitzangel barked. "In and out! They didn't have very advanced technology, you said!"

"They don't!" Drift insisted. "They're not supposed to!" Another metal claw swiped for him and he ducked before it took off his head.

The job had been to protect one being. He was Laagarian, from the planet Jaaren. They were a slender people, blue skinned and slightly shorter than the average Cybertronian. Blitzangel was finding out that more and more life forms in the galaxy were normally that size. To happen upon a world where the population were as small as the humans of Earth was rare.

The person Drift had been hired to protect was some sort of political figurehead. He was on the hit list of a group of extremists. This politician had been kept in a secret bunker inside the city. Now his followers were trying to get him safely out. Drift insisted this was all Blitzangel needed to know. The job was to protect this one person and make sure he traveled safely. That was it. No need to complicate the situation with facts.

The planet Jaaren was supposed to be a little bit behind in the technology race compared to the majority of space. Only recently had their planet made contact with other life forms, resulting in a brand new technology boom for the Laagarian society. Trade had opened up for the people with several other planets, but they were still vastly behind the societies they were trading with in technology. Drift had assured his female companion they should not be running into anything that they could not handle, should there be an attack. He hadn't been expecting this.

The politician and his family were still climbing onto the bullet train headed away from the city when the attack happened out of nowhere. An aircraft roared overhead in the night sky and from its belly landed three mechanized shells. Not living robots, but mechanical skeletons with a Laagarian pilot inside. Each mecha had heavy claws for hands. The closest of the three raised a mighty paw to rip the train apart. Drift was immediately in the way to defend. He blocked the attack with a heavy sword while ordering those under his watch to get on the train and go.

As the shuttle retreated with its cargo, Blitzangel berated him for his overconfidence in the job.

"So where did these things come from?" she demanded as she fell in step in a dangerous dance of dodging two mecha at once.

Drift's opponent landed the massive claw again and he held it away with his blade, joints creaking from the strain. "I dunno. I guess they bought them off-world from someone. That happens with terrorists. You can find anything to do the job if you have enough money."

"No use complaining about it now," Blitzangel said, mostly to herself. She jumped on the closest mecha, using her scanners to find the warm-blooded body inside. She slashed at its head. While the mechanism looked impressive at first glance, the metal proved to be cheap and thin. Blitzangel cut cleanly all the way through and the top half slid off with a heavy thud.

The Laagarian inside looked plenty afraid as his machine sputtered and sparked, quickly losing power. Blitzangel had already hopped to the next one.

"These things are easy," she announced.

Drift confirmed it for himself as he stabbed his blade all the way through the one he was fighting, just a hair away from the body of the organic pilot. He jerked his sword up and the whole right side fell away, the mecha's power instantly dead. He glanced over in time to see Blitzangel punch the final mecha square in the chest. Her fist went right through and she pulled out a scraped and startled pilot.

Even Drift had to flinch a little at that. The femme could punch a lot harder than she looked.  
In no time, the three extremists were wrapped in their own flimsy metal to wait for the local authorities to find them.

"You may have stopped us," one of the terrorists said to them. "But there are still others. Even with your exo-suits, you will never catch that train now and our people are already there."

Drift and Blitzangel just smirked at each other. Not every planet was familiar with Cybertronians and what they actually were. The three captured criminals stared with wide eyes as they transformed into one land and one air vehicle and took off the way the shuttle had gone.

"Whoa," one of them said as he watched the living robots race away. "Next time, let's get ourselves some of those."

It didn't take long for Blitzangel to catch up to the shuttle with her powerful thrusters. Up ahead, she could already see two more mecha on top of the train, trying to rip open the top. She easily kicked them off as she landed, taking some personal amusement from watching their metal skeletons bounce around in the distance.

Drift swerved to miss them as he raced to catch up. "Blitzangel, the aircraft. Take that out of commission and they won't be able to follow. I'll watch the train."

Blitzangel scanned the starry sky with her optic band. Her sensors picked up the craft overhead. "On it."

She transformed and jetted to higher altitudes. Those on board must have seen her coming; they fired anti-aircraft missiles in her direction. Blitzangel spun as her wingtips easily dodged them. She caught up before they could fire on her again. The craft was bigger than she was, with the people on this planet nearly the same size as herself. But that certainly didn't mean Blitzangel didn't know how to take apart an aircraft, no matter what its size. A few slices and tearing of wires and the engines were dead. Blitzangel hovered in the air as she watched the aircraft lose power and drop like a stone to the ground below. A few pale parachutes expanded as the ship exploded below them. Blitzangel gathered them up by their strings and flew them back to the city to join their friends.

With the ship out of commission, Drift reported no other incidents as the politician and his family were safely spirited away into the night.

* * *

By the time Drift's car mode reached his shuttle, Blitzangel was already standing on top of it, checking the engines for any needed repairs before they returned to the stars and their next destination. He climbed up just as she was sealing a panel.

"How's she looking?"

Blitzangel shrugged. "You know, one this old, I've got her ready to fly another day, that's about it."

"That's my baby," Drift scuffed his foot on it affectionately.

"Ready to go?"

"Now?" Drift insisted. "But we just got here. Let's take a break for a while."

"And do what?" Blitzangel argued. "We can't exactly go back to the city. They don't know what we are there."

"Do they really know what we are anywhere?" Drift asked with a strange sort of smile. He lay himself down on top of the shuttle, hands folded behind his head. "We spend so much time swimming in the stars, let's look at them for a while from a distance."

Blitzangel didn't look completely amenable to the suggestion, but she knelt down next to him anyway. The two sat in companionable silence for a while, Drift watching the stars. Blitzangel didn't watch anything in particular. She took this moment of silence to reflect internally.

They had been doing this for several months now and it wasn't such a bad way to live. Every planet they had been to they had to disguise themselves one way or another. Even when planets knew of Cybertron's existence, that didn't mean they were welcome to walk around in the open. But there was something therapeutic about just being able to get out and do something with herself. Blitzangel hadn't gone back to trying to readjust her internal programming since she had left Cybertron. She no longer felt she needed to. It felt good just to exist without fear and captivity. Maybe she was healing merely by being free.

"So where are we going next?" Blitzangel wondered.

Drift just shrugged. "I dunno. We'll find something, I guess. We're not exactly hard up for money right now, with you doing all the repair work."

"Yeah, but you love having money," she smirked. "We'll be working again soon enough."

Drift chuckled. "You got me there. You know me so well."

"Seriously, is there anything you haven't done for money?" She liked wheedling old stories from him. It gave them something to talk about instead of discussing the important issues neither wanted to think about.

"I've done just about everything: security work, bodyguard duty, I've worked in mines and on space stations, done a little bounty hunting even. I'll do anything if the pay is right, really."

Blitzangel smiled wider. "You're such a whore."

Drift grinned back. "I totally am."

The femme leaned closer, face full of intrigue. "What about being a hit man? Do you ever do any of that?"

Drift's smile faded. "No," he said with all seriousness. "I don't kill for anyone. Not anymore."

Blitzangel was even more intrigued now. "So are you saying you used to be a hit man?"

"I used to be Megatron's personal assassin," Drift confirmed, staring back at the stars.

Blitzangel jerked backward. "Bullshit!" It wouldn't have been the first time the white mech told her a wild story just to mess with her.

Drift meditated on the unfamiliar interjection, but he understood the tone of her statement. His Earth English was only as good as what he learned from their music. Every once in a while, Blitzangel would say something in that language he didn't know. He still hadn't asked her how she knew of the planet in the first place.

"Of course I was. What's so hard to believe about that?"

Blitzangel's incredulity was clear on her face. "There's no way you were Decepticon. You're too... cuddly."

Drift guffawed at the unexpected adjective. "What? Me? You've seen all the blades I carry..."

"Yeah, but you're harmless," she insisted. "You're not like them."

"Neither are you, but you were one of them," the white bot reminded.

Blitzangel instantly frowned. "I didn't have a choice. They took it away from me."

"I see." Drift knew what that meant. He was never blind to the ways Megatron would often recruit for his army. "I'm afraid, in my case, all the responsibility falls on me. I gave up my own morals for the Decepticon cause. I let Megatron make the decisions for me. He didn't have to let Shockwave or anyone else reprogram me internally, that sneaky glitch knew the exact words I wanted to hear. He knew I was looking for a cause to fight for. He gave me one and made me believe I was fighting for the good of my people and my planet."

Drift's gaze wandered further than the stars, back through time. He scratched at his chest as if it contained an old wound still festering under his shiny paint. "It wasn't until I had dug myself so deep into a hole I could never crawl out of that I realized too late I had been wrong- that he had been wrong. My spark was already soiled with blood and guilt. Still, I wanted out, but one does not merely walk away from Megatron, no matter what the reason."

Glued to the story now, Blitzangel leaned in closer, her optic band bright. "How did you get out?"

Regret crossed the white mech's features. "I ran. Like a scared petrorabbit, I ran from everything: my people, my responsibility, my home. I fled Cybertron, changed my design, my name, everything. I disappeared." He shifted, heavily venting air. "I wanted to do good by my people, but ended up doing nothing."

Blitzangel had leaned in closer, curious. "What else could you have done, do you think?"

Drift vented again, with more frustration this time. "Against Megatron and his army, there wasn't much more I could have done. But that doesn't make it any easier."

"Are you ever going to go back?" the femme wondered.

Drift gave her a curious glance. "Do _you_ want to go back?"

A momentary flicker of emotion raced through her systems. It wasn't the place, but the faces that caused the reaction. She knew the faces, but a part of her was trying not to access those memories. She didn't want to. They were on Cybertron and that planet was a stifling, suffocating world where every place she went was worse than the one before. Even just thinking about it made her recoil.

"No," she said quickly. "I don't want to go back there. I want to stay with you."

A smile spread over Drift's features. Still on his back, he slowly reached a hand toward her face. Blitzangel shied away from the touch, as she had every other time he tried. He had only been able to touch her when they were sparring so far, and that was when she wasn't fast enough to dodge his blows. The purple femme was like a wild animal, afraid of touch, as if the gentle hand reaching for her would turn into a trap at any time to snap on her and pin her down.

Usually, Drift would give up the moment she ducked from him, but this time he held his hand aloft when she leaned back. He stayed motionless for a while and when Blitzangel did not move away, he ventured to reach further. Ever so slowly, she allowed him to touch her face with the backs of his fingers. Drift rubbed the plane of her cheek with his knuckles for a brief moment then pulled away, satisfied for now.

"You are welcome to stay with me as long as you like."

"Thank you, by the way," she said, leaning over him. "I know you didn't have to- you still don't have to."

The red light from her optic band reflected on the white paint of his body. Drift wanted to touch her again, but refrained this time.

"Eh, don't worry about it. It makes the traveling a bit more interesting and gives me someone to talk to." He gave her a hopeful smile. "And maybe, someday, you'll tell me more about yourself."

With that optic band her face was hard to read sometimes, but Blitzangel's tone was light. "Maybe."

* * *

The two drifters left the planet Jaaren behind, discreetly taking off before dawn. Drift excused himself for a quick recharge in the back while Blitzangel watched the controls. When he was finished, they switched.

Blitzangel very much enjoyed the quiet time she was able to have to herself. It let her reflect on her scrambled memories. Putting them in chronological order when Drift wasn't around was a welcome pastime. All she had to do was sit in the pilot's seat, stare at the stars and think. Emotions could be left behind and she was able just to sit and organize. Then when it was her turn to recharge, she could drift blissfully off while her systems saved her work in the proper files. It was all very orderly and Blitzangel enjoyed the peace after so much chaos.

However, this time was different. Blitzangel found herself thrown from slumber, optic band bright in the darkness of the coffin-like recharge berth. The spidery tendrils of dream-like thoughts hovered in the back of her processor. Trepidation thudded in her fuel pump. There was an echo of a deep voice in her head, a voice she'd heard deep in the planet Cybertron, in a place she was not sure she could ever go to again. It was a place she thought might have just been a dream. But the warning suddenly felt just as real as when she first experienced it. Something was coming and it was getting close.

* * *

"You know what I think?" Blitzangel asked as she dodged the large blade of Drift's sword.

Drift's expression looked amused even as he attacked. "What have you been thinking about?"

"You've been taking easy jobs because of me," she accused as she sliced at him with her arm blades.

Drift had to back up a few steps and change his strategy. The femme was getting better. She was always fast, but now she was learning to use that speed to her advantage against his greater skill.

"They haven't been _that_ easy," he insisted.

Blitzangel paused, giving him a look.

"Okay, maybe a bit on the easy side, but they still pay. What's wrong with that?"

"I don't want you babying me if it's losing us money. There _are_ two of us after all." Blitzangel flipped over his head. Drift almost didn't turn around fast enough to block the attack. "We should be able to make more money. Let's find something more challenging, something with better pay."

Their blades were locked. Drift leaned over them, his nose almost brushing hers. "Getting restless?" he asked with a smile.

Blitzangel wasn't sure how to explain how she felt. It was a sudden need to run, but there was also an urge to fight, to face danger, and sparring with Drift wasn't exactly meeting that need.

"I thought you liked looking for adventure," she smirked back. "And if you say you've been holding off because you were trying to protect my fragile psyche, I'll punch you."

Drift was grinning wide, optics full of amusement. He loved her banter. It was just nice to have someone to banter with. "Well, if that is what you want, I know of a place where we could earn a bigger payoff, but the risk is higher."

"I'm sure you'll keep me safe."

Drift tried not to let it show that his spark fluttered a bit. "If you want me to." He cleared his vocalizer and lowered his blade. "But we'll have to use the warp jump or it will take us forever to get there."

Blitzangel paused as well. "You have one? Why don't we ever use it?" The mention of warping made butterflies appear in her fuel tank. Sharp wings and red optics danced in her memory.

Drift sheathed his impressive sword. "It takes up too much fuel. It's more cost effective just to go the old fashioned way, unless it's too far to reach without a warp. And I've always liked the quiet time in between. Especially now that I have someone to travel with."

"I'm flattered you think I'm good company," Blitzangel said neutrally as she turned to climb the ladder that lead to the top level.

Drift watched her climb. "The view's not bad, either."  
"I heard that."

Drift grinned. He had meant her to.

Back up top, Blitzangel took her usual place in the copilot's seat while Drift shifted through his travel music. He had quite a large collection, many from several other planets and cultures. But that Earth 80's music was still his favorite flavor.

"Here we go," he announced as he produced a disk. "Let's get this joyride started right! Warm up the warp drive!"

Blitzangel just continued to sit. She had no idea how to work it; she just let Drift talk. He seemed to enjoy having audios that could hear him.

The white mech slid the disk into shuttle's dashboard- a disk Blitzangel would never admit out loud she might have padded with some of her own favorite songs instead of adhering to Drift's taste. This particular song, however, seemed to be growing into a popular theme for their excursions. She was quietly happy Drift seemed to like it so much. Full of energy as ever, he jumped around the bay, practicing a few of his favorite fighting moves, as he sang to the ever-catchy beat of Roxette.  
_  
__I hit the road out of nowhere  
I had to jump in my car  
Be a rider in a love game  
Following the stars  
Don't need no book of wisdom  
I get no money talk at all _

Drift pounced on the back of Blitzangel's chair, leaning over it to look at her. "You should dance with me."

"What you do, I would hardly call it dancing."

"Killjoy," he teased. "How long are you going to brood?"

Blitzangel felt a bit of indignation flow through her. "I do NOT brood, I'm just-"

Her chair suddenly lurched forward as Drift pushed it. Blitzangel was shot out, stumbling to catch her balance. Drift caught it for her, his arm around her midsection. It was more physical contact than he had ever had with her. He could feel the smaller femme's body tremble at his touch. It just made Drift hold her closer. She could feel the rumbling of his spark, a steady powerful beat radiating through her body. In the back of his processor, Drift momentarily wondered why he couldn't feel hers.

The shuttle surged as if had hit a large pothole on their invisible, starry highway. Alarms went off on the console and Drift instantly abandoned the femme in his arms to see to the wellbeing of his ship.

Blitzangel peered over his shoulder. "What's going on? Something attacking the shields?" She couldn't see anything out the window.

Drift typed at the console, scanning through the results on the screen. "I didn't turn on the shields. The early warning system is supposed to pick up any ship in the area first. Not to mention, this bucket of scrap isn't exactly high on the target list of well... anyone. We probably just rammed into some space junk or something."

Blitzangel sat down in her usual chair, hands between her knees as she watched him work. Then, it captured her notice, the far wall didn't look quite right. It was... rippling, changing color, getting brighter. It was melting.

"Um... Drift?"

That caught his attention. She didn't really say his name much, there was no need to when there are only two of you. He liked the sound of her voice saying his name. However, when he looked up, she wasn't watching him, but the wall behind him. She pointed and he glanced over at what she was staring at.

The wall was melting from a concentrated heat source coming from the other side. Drift hadn't a clue what from. They weren't near any suns, nor were there any other vessels in the area. Whatever it was, it was liquefying the hull all the way through.

Both passengers were on their feet, tense with curiosity and fear. The metal of the ship melted away, but something was still glowing behind it. And moving. Something was alive out there. Drift drew his sword as the hole grew bigger. A head- a robotic head-poked itself inside. The face and helm were a familiar design, but the voice and that grin were not.

"Knock, knock," he called. "Let's see who's inside here."

He stepped through the new door, the walls still melting around the glowing, orange hue of his body. The bot was tall with long legs and sharp wings, his design instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with Cybertron.

"A seeker," Drift growled, crouching for battle. He glanced at Blitzangel. "Anyone you know?"

The purple femme was also tense. "I've not had the pleasure." Even in her skewed memory banks, she could not recall a seeker of that color, bright orange and creme, with such a confident smirk. As best she could recall, there were only three seekers left in Megatron's army with their own personalities intact. This one did not bear his Decepticon symbol.

"I thought I smelled a spark or two," the seeker continued to grin as he stepped further inside. There seemed to be a glowing hue of heat around him and his feet made burn marks on the floor where ever he walked.

He also was not alone. Another seeker came in through the hole. This one was sleeker, smaller, feminine. She was painted in purple and mint green and her optics were sharp as she looked around.

"You called it, Sunstorm. Found us a couple of Cybertronians." Her sensual smile spread across her delicate features.

"I told you, Slipstream," Sunstorm replied. "I have a nose for these things."

"What exactly do you want from us?" Drift demanded, weapons still brandished.

Sunstorm straightened to his full height. "We bring-" He paused as if forgetting something. The orange seeker turned, not minding the fact that his back was now to his enemies, and poked his head out into space.

"Acid Storm! Get your big aft in here right now!"

A third seeker clamored inside, the same design but larger, thicker, heavier. His optics were deeper red, dark in more ways than one. Viscous fluid dripped from his forearms, droplets hissing when they landed on the floor.

"That's better," Sunstorm approved. "Now." He straightened again, spreading his arms in the same fashion as before. "We bring a message from The Unmaker."

Drift frowned. "I don't care what you bring. Kindly remove yourselves from my ship or I'll boot the three of you out myself."

Sunstorm's broad expression fell. It wasn't quite the awe and respect he calculated for one of his genesis. "You would do well to heed what I have to say. If you choose battle instead, you will not win against the three of us."

"My blades will decide who wins," Drift responded with a growl and attacked.

He raced for the bright orange seeker, heavy sword slashing through the air toward his chest. Sunstorm didn't even move to defend himself. The blade was met with a second one, a bright blue energy blade. Its brilliance slid out of the top of Slipstream's wrist like a claw.

"Uh, uh," she tsked at the white mech.

Sunstorm still grinned that annoying grin as he grabbed Drift's blade, his fingers sinking right through the metal like a hot iron through butter. Drift's optics widened as he felt the intense, concentrated heat from the orange seeker. This was not a good sign. He dodged out of the way as Sunstorm punched at him with a fiery fist, abandoning his damaged sword. Drift back-flipped to where Blitzangel still crouched, trying to reassess his strategy.

Sunstorm didn't give him a moment. He charged. The two scrambled out of the way as his fist burned through the passenger chair. In her haste to get away, Blitzangel rolled right into the female seeker. She just managed to snap out her blades before Slipstream sliced her. Slipstream withdrew and attacked again, but Blitzangel blocked every blow.

"You're fast, little flyer," Slipstream said as she pressed down. "But I'm stronger."

Blitzangel's joints creaked under the weight of the larger female pushing her down, but she refused to give in. Frantically, she tried to think of a way to get out from under the blade.

"You seem familiar to me," Slipstream continued. "You have that design, but it's different."

"What... do you mean?" Blitzangel managed to ask.

"Were you the one," Slipstream asked as she leaned in even closer, "who found the asteroid of my master? Did you blow it up, little one? He has not been pleased about that."

New memories flooded into Blitzangel's systems. The asteroid, sliding walls, seekers, an explosion. She had been there. Someone else knew what she had done. The look of surprise and fear that covered her face made Slipstream smile.

"So it was you. He used a part of you to build me, though I think we look even more alike now, don't you? The Master wants me to make sure you pay for destroying what was his."

A second blue energy blade jabbed toward her, intent on running her through. Blitzangel let her knees fall limp, falling on her back. Her legs shot out, kicking the purple and green seeker with both feet as hard as she could. Slipstream flew across the room, knocking into the heavier form of Acid Storm. The green seeker had not engaged in any combat as of yet. Close spaces made him nervous. He wished to stay near the new hole on the side of the ship and the openness of space.

"You idiot! Do something!" Slipstream barked as she struggled to get back to her feet.

Meanwhile, Drift dodged the best he could in the confined area as Sunstorm swiped at him left and right. The seeker was melting the chairs, the floor, the ceiling, the controls. Drift needed to get the intruder out of there before he melted everything, including Drift himself.

Sunstorm stumbled as something heavy hit him from behind. It was Blitzangel, swinging what remained of her chair. She whipped it around a second time, letting the metal melt into the seeker and then using it to protect her foot from Sunstorm's heat as she kicked him down. Everything around him began to hiss and glow where Sunstorm fell.

Blitzangel was too busy watching in fascination to notice Slipstream coming up behind her. The femme seeker slashed at her side. Blitzangel instinctively rolled away, but the blade had already found its mark, biting with its energy up her side. Slipstream sliced again and Blitzangel stumbled backward to avoid further injury. The blades kept coming, Slipstream was relentless. Blitzangel was unable to do anything else but dodge and block. Before she realized what was going on, she was herded right where Slipstream wanted her, to the waiting arms of Acid Storm.

The large, green seeker swiped at her, slower than the femme seeker, but Blitzangel didn't have a lot of room to move around the hulking mech. Acid sprayed her all over: her arms, her wings, her chest, as she tried to stay away from those deathly fingertips. There was so little space to retreat. Acid Storm and Slipstream were boxing her in.

"Angel!" Drift had managed to break away from Sunstorm and came charging toward the two.

He ran shoulder first right into Acid Storm's back, causing the heavy seeker to stumble into Slipstream while Blitzangel dodged out of the way. But Sunstorm was already in front of her, charging. Blitzangel scrambled to get away, her pain receptors already spinning from the acid eating through her armor and wires. Sunstorm swiped at her foot and she slipped as the metal on the back of her leg burned. She fell to floor, rolling on her back in hopes of defending herself. However, Sunstorm's fist was aimed right at her chest and there was no way she could protect herself from the damage he would cause her.

Sunstorm's punch flew toward her and suddenly there was a body between them. The molten fist connected solidly with Drift's back as he straddled Blitzangel on his hands and knees. Drift screamed as the contact melted through everything: through his armor and into his back strut and the large bundle of pain receptors within. The noise coming from his vocalizer sounded like all of his systems together were crying out in pain, drowning out the original tone of his voice.

Blitzangel grabbed one of the blades he had sheathed on his hip and drove it right into Sunstorm's lower midsection. To her horror, it didn't seem to hurt him, but the action of being wounded did appear to stun him a bit. It was enough to buy her time to scramble for one of the few firearms Drift kept hidden around the flight deck. The three seekers dodged and retreated as she fired on them. Blitzangel wished she had better aim. Her training sessions with Drift did not help with her weakness at all. Both of them always favored their blades.

Still, she managed to keep the three seekers at bay as she dragged Drift's body into a corner. System fluids were now leaking down her side as the acid continued to eat through her. Both of them were in a bad way. Drift twitched on the floor, his pain receptors about to reach shutdown from the sensory overload.

"Where do you think you're going, little femme?" Sunstorm taunted. "That measly pistol isn't going to hold off all three of us for long."

Blitzangel leveled the seekers a flat look. She didn't say anything, only pressed pressed a large, red button on the panel behind her. The floor below the two wounded bots suddenly fell open and they disappeared down a shaft before the seekers knew what happened.

Drift's dead weight landed on top of her as they hit bottom and Blitzangel tried to quell the cry of pain lurching in her throat. She took a moment to glance down at her own injuries. Slipstream had managed to slice through a few of the exposed cables at her waist and there were random spots of acid all up her side, chest and arm. Several warnings were blinking through her vision that she was losing pressure as liquids were leaking out faster and faster. Drift was even worse off. That one hit had damaged him beyond recovery. His back was a melted mess and his optics flickered as he drifted in and out of involuntary stasis lock. There was no time. Blitzangel needed to get both of them a safe distance away before she was too damaged to act as well.

The shaft landed them right in the ship's emergency escape pod. She pulled herself up to the controls and ordered the escape shuttle to depart. The ship's belly spat them out like a torpedo and Blitzangel knew Drift was going to miss his ship, but there was no turning back now. She ignited the escape pod's thrusters and charged full throttle away from what had been her new home for a few months. It was sad to give it up, but there was nothing she could do.

Unfortunately, they weren't out of danger yet. Moments after their retreat, three jet forms could be seen flying from the abandoned shuttle, making a beeline straight for the escape pod. And they were gaining. If they caught up to the pod, that would be it. Blitzangel had only one trick left, the warp jump.  
As the seekers closed in, she slapped her palm on the warp button. The trio paused as the escape pod stretched before their optics and then disappeared in a burst of blue light. There would be no following. None of them had any warp abilities.

The trio transformed, Slipstream's engines still growling in frustration at the loss of their prey.

"Don't worry about them, they were merely a distraction," Sunstorm said. "Cybertron is what we're after. Let's go."

He turned into the opposite direction and transformed, jetting off into space. Acid Storm followed obediently behind him. Slipstream took one last look in the direction the shuttle had disappeared and then followed her team.

* * *

The warp jump was jarring, especially with all her injuries. As soon as they were out of the warp field, the shuttle's systems flashed warning signs of low fuel. The escape pod had only enough fuel for one jump, then it was pretty much down for the count. It was a last ditch effort to escape danger. At least they had warped too far for the seekers to reach them without weeks and weeks of travel.

That feeling of safety, however, was short-lived as Blitzangel felt the shuttle being pulled sideways. She looked out the window and saw a massive planet swallowing up her entire view. Any further and they would have warped right into it. Unfortunately, the shuttle was so close it was being pulled in by the planet's gravity. The escape pod did not have the fuel nor the power to break free of the gravitational hold. They were going down.

Through the white mist of the atmosphere, the little pod was pulled faster and faster toward the surface of the planet. As they rocketed closer, Blitzangel saw it and she couldn't believe what she was looking at. Of all the universes and nebulae, countless worlds and galaxies, it had to be this planet they were falling toward. This planet, of all others, with its jagged land masses floating amid the large bodies of ocean.

Faster and faster, the shuttle was pulled toward land, one specific part of land in particular. One such mass with purple mountains' majesty and amber waves of grain. A place where they called it soccer when the rest of the world called it football. A place where a ship of similar origin had crashed nine million years previously. And without any action on their own part, they were careening toward the exact same spot.

Fear rippled through her as Blitzangel felt it, a heavy hand, stronger than gravity itself, taking hold of the ship and forcing it down. From this grip, there was truly no escape. This was how it was meant to be.

* * *

"Sir," Red Alert called to the Ark's new base commander, Ultra Magnus. "I've got something on the radar. A shuttle falling through the atmosphere, heading straight for our location. It's of Cybertronian make."

That certainly got the large Autobot's attention. He joined Red Alert over at the main screen. "Is it Autobot or Decepticon?"

"There is no faction insignia on the shuttle, but it's already hailed us with an Autobot SOS." Red Alert paused and added. "It's an old code. The one Prime's team used to use."

That was all Ultra Magnus needed to know. "Radio the Arielbots. Tell them to assist in the shuttle's landing. I'll have a greeting party ready in case it's a trick."

* * *

"Is he kidding?" Slingshot demanded as he watched the glow of the burning shuttle screaming in their direction. "Red Alert wants us to stop that thing?"

"Ultra Magnus does, too," Silverbolt said in his usually neutral voice. "Let's at least say we gave it a shot, Arielbots. Slingshot, Fireflight, you're leading point. Go."

The team of Autobot planes all transformed and jetted for the sky. The distance between them and the falling shuttle closed quickly as both rushed to meet each other.

As the shuttle entered the final layer of atmosphere, it used its last bit of fuel to fire retrorockets to slow its fall. The speed reduction helped as the Arielbots each fired a rope with a hook into the shuttle. Together, they managed to slow the decent to a manageable speed.

A group of armed Autobots were waiting outside the Ark as the last of the shuttle's fuel petered out and the Arielbots dropped it on the ground with a heavy thud. Everyone was too concerned with what was in the shuttle to worry about the young bots' shoddy handling.

For a while, the space vessel remained quiet. All present Autobots stayed tense, hands on their weapons should anything go awry. Red Alert had already tried to hail identification from any of the passengers with no results. It was anyone's guess who was inside.

The door hissed open and a short, stout ramp slid out like a tongue. Two figures emerged, hunched and staggering. Blitzangel had Drift's arm around her neck, the rest of his lifeless body dead weight. System fluids continued to spill from her injuries, draining the life out of her legs from the lack of pressure. Only a few steps down the ramp and her body gave out. Slipping on her own liquids, Blitzangel stumbled and both she and Drift ended up face down in the dirt.

Above them towered the great form of Ultra Magnus, not looking pleased at the slightly familiar bots. At his sides were Springer and Kup, their blasters at the ready as if the wounded would suddenly spring up and attack at any time.

Behind them, a shorter Autobot pushed his way ahead until he was standing in front of them all. Blitzangel's optic band flickered as his form blocked out the sun in a very familiar silhouette of broad build and fanned door panels. The mech knelt down and gently lifted her head as Blitzangel tried to access her memory files.

"...Prowl?"

"No." The mech smiled sadly as if regretting not being the one named himself. A closer inspection revealed his paint was a dull gray instead of the stark white Blitzangel first imagined. This one's features weren't as sharp, nor his optics as hard.

"It's me. It's Bluestreak."

Blitzangel struggled to sit up, to say something, but her wounds were taking their final toll.

"It's okay," Bluestreak shushed her gently as he gathered her light form in his arms. His voice was soft like spring grass, even as she slipped into stasis. "You're safe now. You found your way home."


	11. Chapter 11: Untouchable

Rising Generations  
Chapter 11: Untouchable

Blitzangel went online immediately, as if waking from a startling dream. Her systems were already online and at full capacity, as though she were merely sleeping. She tried to move and found her body strapped down on a table. Instantly, her arm blades snapped out in alarm as she struggled for freedom. This was why she hated going offline. More often than not, she regained consciousness in a strange place, strapped down and at the mercy of her captors.

"You are in no danger," a male voice spoke behind her. The owner of the voice walked into view: a mid-sized mech, painted red and white with a face mask. "Please forgive the restraints. After what you did in Iacon's med bay, I thought it best not to take chances." The tone of his voice was calm and gentle. He kept one hand over the Autobot insignia on his chest.

"Where am I?" Blitzangel asked, still suspicious.

"You're in the Ark's med bay, on Earth. I'm First Aid, the chief medical officer."

Blitzangel glanced around the walls, surprised that she had originally assumed she was in a strange place. She then recalled the sudden crash to Earth. How was it that she did not recognize this room on sight? It wasn't the area, but the soft-spoken Autobot inhabiting it that made it strange. This First Aid was nothing like the brash, authoritative lord who used to rule the med bay with an iron fist. It made the place seem foreign and strange without him.

"Have you done anything to me?" she asked in an accusing tone.

"I have merely repaired your physical injuries. I have not touched any of your internal programming, nor will I without your permission." When the femme didn't say anything, First Aid continued, "I am going to release you now. You are free to come and go as you please. No one will try to stop you. No one will even approach you. Just... please don't attack anyone."

Blitzangel merely nodded.

First Aid pressed a button and the metal straps disconnected. He stepped back, giving the purple femme plenty of room to sit up. He knew he was taking a risk here. There were no guards to help him if this Blitzangel suddenly decided to go berserk. His brothers sure weren't happy about the risk, but First Aid was braver than he appeared. This was what Ultra Magnus wanted and his reasoning seemed sound. First Aid was certain that if he stayed calm and kept his distance, all would be okay.

Blitzangel did not attack. Instead, she sheathed her blades and looked around, still sitting on the table. She turned her head to the medic who was pressing himself as closely to the wall as he could.

"The white mech I was with, where is he? Is he still...?"

"He is in the back." First Aid motioned, remembering to keep his chest covered. "Come with me."

Blitzangel hopped off the table and followed him to the back of the med bay. There lay Drift's body, face down, his exposed back a complete mess.

"None of his major life support systems were too damaged," First Aid explained. "But his pain receptors fritzed out from overload. It will take me a while to replace and repair that system. Also, his back strut has been melted into a solid brick. It's going to take me a while to chip out what was damaged before I can put in a new one. I'm afraid he will be in stasis for a while."

Blitzangel looked over the body. Her fingers ghosted nervously over the sharp planes of the form as if afraid to give it full contact. Her shoulders were becoming stiff and her wing tips twitched with anxiety.

"Who attacked you?" First Aid asked softly.

Blitzangel didn't seem to hear him. "I have to go," she told the medic almost apologetically. "I can't stay in here."

"That is fine," the medic said after a pause. "If you need to leave, feel free. You are welcome back any time." He turned, dropping the conversation, to attend another corner of the facility.

Even as he turned away from her, Blitzangel still looked around suspiciously as if expecting Autobots to come pouring out from the very walls to stop her. But as she slowly backed out of the med bay, no one came. She moved cautiously down the halls, glancing down every corridor. No one seemed to be around. She still remembered this place; she remembered how to get out.

Almost there, and Blitzangel saw someone walk up toward her. She tensed as the approaching Autobot stiffened as well. It was Perceptor and he, too, seemed surprised to pass her in the hall. Blitzangel skirted him, glancing at the floor as she passed. The tall Autobot only afforded her a quick glance and tight smile, but didn't change his pace as he walked calmly by. Despite this, Blitzangel's pace quickened as she aimed for the exit. By the time she could see daylight, she was practically sprinting for freedom. She had barely cleared the Ark before she transformed and took off into the sky, jet engines screaming.

* * *

"Well, there she goes," Red Alert announced in an "I hope you're happy now" tone of voice. He had been watching the entire thing on his many security cameras. "Was this what you wanted, Ultra Magnus?"

"It's fine," the new Ark commander insisted from his chair. He had been busy while their little, lost femme was being repaired.

As soon as Blitzangel had shown up on his doorstep, Ultra Magnus contacted Cybertron. He spoke with Optimus Prime, with Prowl, Jazz, Ratchet, anyone who could give him more information on how to proceed in this new predicament. With their input, he had come up with a plan of action.

Everyone on the Ark, to an extent, knew who she was. The incident with Blaster told the commander that communication was key. A few of the Earth Autobots who kept in close contact with some of the Autobots on Cybertron, like Bluestreak and Wheeljack, already knew who Blitzangel was and that she had already come and gone from Cybertron months ago. No one ever expected her to end up on Earth in a million years. No one knew how complete her old memories were.

Nevertheless, everyone on the Ark was informed what was going on. Those Autobots who knew Crystal before her capture were given the full report. The new Autobots from Cybertron were told she was an Autobot who had been reprogrammed by the Decepticons and the way she was acting was not her fault. It was truthful enough and it got everyone on board to cooperate with Magnus' plan.

His orders were to simply leave the femme alone. On Cybertron, they had tried to force help on her and that hadn't worked. This time, they were going to let her take it at her own pace and when she was ready for help, she could come to them on her own terms.

"What if she doesn't come back?" Red Alert insisted.

"She will," Ultra Magnus said. "We have her companion. She's not going to leave him behind."

* * *

The sky was blue, and blue and blue. So blue and amazing. Blitzangel couldn't get enough of it. Cybertron's sky was practically nonexistent in comparison. It had hardly any atmosphere to speak of. It was merely tall spires and space directly after. Earth's lovely sky went on for miles and miles, full of fluffy, white clouds for the living jet to play in.

Blitzangel flew far and fast away from the Ark, over cities and mountains and long stretches of highway. She wanted away from them and the far reach of all their surveillance equipment. She didn't want them to be able to see her and watch what she was doing. All she wanted to do was fly, and fly she did, across everything, sometimes buzzing low to get a look at the people below her.

Humans. She had been one of them once, as best as she could recall. That life felt like a dream now, yet she knew how to be human still, if she were ever to find her old body again. It felt strange to recall that once she lost her organic body, she never tried to go out into the world again. Why did she not? What had she been afraid of? This massive planet felt larger than space itself, in a way. Why did she not want to get out in it?

As she played in the puffy clouds in her robot mode, her all-frequency radio began to hear static. There was an airport tower in the area. Just as Blitzangel was going to make sure she didn't get in the way of any aircraft, an SOS sounded through the static. A large passenger plane was having engine trouble and they were going down too quickly. Blitzangel followed the source through the cumulus and saw the smoke from the careening engine. The plane was huge, bigger than she was. But even it didn't have the thruster power she did.

She raced faster than the struggling plane could fall, catching the side of the wing with her hands and gently attempting to compensate and level the plane. People were staring at her in awe through the windows. The landing was a bit bumpy, but there were no injured to report to the waiting emergency vehicles.

One of the EMTs gave a low whistle as he gazed up at the tall robotic being. Everyone knew about Autobots these days, but maybe he was out of the loop. He hadn't heard of them having any female robots and this one was definitely not male. "Big girl," he commented to himself.

The humans were trying to talk to her, thank her, but Blitzangel was starting to get uncomfortable again. Up close, they were still so small, so easily crushed and killed. It made her nervous to be so close to them. One voice called up to her, asking if she was an Autobot. That did it. Blitzangel skittered away as carefully as she could and took off into the sky, transforming as she went. A sonic boom rattled the windows in the wake of her retreat.

* * *

Blitzangel didn't return to the Ark for two days. Some of the original Earth Autobots wanted to go out looking for her because they were worried. The Arielbots wanted to search for her because they were bored. Ultra Magnus said no. She would come back on her own when she was ready.

On the third day, in the afternoon, she landed outside but she kept her distance and did not enter the base. She stayed there the rest of the day, not leaving, but not going inside. Not a single Autobot showed himself to her as she wandered the circumference of the volcano, flew up to look down inside or paced around like a nervous cat before the Ark's threshold.

The sun was about to set, just beginning its task of painting the blue sky in oranges and reds and Blitzangel still had not made up her mind about going inside. Long shadows made it difficult to see inside the Ark, but Blitzangel was now used to several hours of solitude and did not expect anyone to be there. She visibly jumped just a fraction when a voice reached her.

"Is this what you spend your time doing these days?" asked someone from the shadows. "Are you going to haunt our doorway all night too, then?"

Blitzangel adjusted her optic visor to try to see who was speaking to her, but it was difficult to get a fix in the half light.

The Autobot stepped out into the tint of the sunset. Blitzangel's memory banks flickered through faces, but she couldn't find a match. She couldn't recall ever making the acquaintance of one such as this. He had a proud stature with dark blue armor of a car alt mode, yet sharp white wings protruded from his shoulders. His voice was smooth and cultured, but his appearance was grizzly. His face was marred by battle, scratched and dented. One optic socket had been warped, giving the impression that one optic was bigger than the other. Huge claws of missing paint were scratched upon his arms and chest. Where a pristine, yellow flame had been painted was now dull gray. The red insignia, a mere memory to the exposed metal underneath.

"You don't remember me," the Autobot accused her, his voice offended.

Blitzangel looked him over, but she still had no idea.

"That's rather pathetic," he said without amusement, "considering I was the last Autobot you ever saw on this planet."

A flash raced across her memory and horror covered the femme's features. "T..Tracks..."

"Yes, Tracks." He frowned as he stepped closer. "How lovely of you to remember."

Blitzangel shivered as she stepped back. She didn't recall him looking like that. "What... what happened to you?"

"You were there," he accused as he continued to advance. "Don't you remember the Cons beating the life out of me?"

She remembered as horrible images raced into her consciousness. The Autobot's parts strewn about. His face nearly torn apart, his energon seeping into the ground in a messy pile of mud. Her whole body shuddered as her knees grew weak. She backed away from what remained of the Autobot Tracks as if he were a ghost. Blitzangel was so startled, she didn't have the presence of mind to watch where she was going. She tripped over a dead tree and, instead of fighting back or flying away, she huddled there on the ground, swimming in the fear from her own memories. Tracks' shadow fell over her and he felt him squat down and flick her in the forehead with one finger.

That single touch caused her to lift her head, wondering when the rest of it would come.

"Idiot." His tone was softer now, a small smile on his face. "I'm not going to do anything to you."

"Tracks!" The new voice was afraid, frantic. "What are you doing?"

Before the blue, scarred Autobot could even respond, he received a large foot in his shoulder, pushing him over.

"You know what Ultra Magnus said!" Bluestreak demanded. "You're just screwing everything up!"

Tracks, for his part, was actually surprised to see the shorter gray Autobot so angry. He almost didn't know what to do at the unexpected reaction.

Bluestreak knew exactly what to do. "Get back inside, now!" His exigent finger pointed toward the base.

"But I was merely-"

"Go!"

Tracks vented air, his marred face perfectly relaying how he felt about being told what to do. Still, he turned and stalked toward the base.

Bluestreak also backed up, unsure if he should linger around the femme. They had been ordered to keep their distance from her unless she came to them. But stupid Tracks always did what he wanted and he had scared her. Now Bluestreak wasn't sure what to do to make the situation better.

"Um.. are you okay?" He asked in a weak voice. It was the complete opposite of the tone he had used earlier.

Blitzangel looked a little self-conscious as she pulled herself up to sit on the tree she had tripped over.

Bluestreak gave her a moment to gather herself. "Is there... anything I can do for you?" he asked hopefully.

Blitzangel looked down at her lap and then back at the Ark's dark entrance where Tracks had disappeared. "Why does he look like that?" she whispered.

"Don't know." Bluestreak gave a small shrug, looking at the Ark as well. "When Ratchet repaired him after the Decepticons, he wouldn't let him finish with the outer body work. He's been like that ever since."

"Ever since when?" Blitzangel looked at him. "How long ago did it happen?"

Bluestreak smiled at her. It was a very sad smile, as if he regretted the answer. "It's spring again, nearly April. You've been gone almost a year."

The femme stiffened. Her processor struggled to find the correct emotional response to that information. It felt like it all happened so much longer ago than that. And yet, it hurt to hear that she had been away so long, as if time in space was supposed to make Earth's time stop until she returned.

"But it's okay," Bluestreak added as he ventured to move closer. "We're just glad you're back. Everyone is so happy to see you again." He sat gingerly on the log, a careful distance away from her.

Blitzangel watched him. She remembered that friendly face and that soft voice. Part of her wanted to curl up next to him with her head in his lap like a puppy and enjoy the feeling of security he radiated. The other part of her recoiled at the thought of touch and wished to slink right out of her skin if she got any closer. Hands were always touching her, always taking things from her, and she couldn't bear to have them do it any more.

"Crystal," Bluestreak continued. "You know if you need anything, any help, we're here for you, right?"

Blitzangel didn't hear the entire question. Her attention stayed focused on the first word and her insides churned. Emotions stirred, but most emotions were so difficult to access. Anger, however, was always so easily available.

"That's not my name," she growled.

Bluestreak stared blankly. "But, the name you have, the Decepticons gave it to you."

Blitzangel jumped to her feet, her arm blades snapping out. Bluestreak almost fell over from the sudden aggression.

"That's not my name anymore!" she barked at him.

That other part of her was rising now. The one that bristled at the sight of the red insignia. The one that whispered pragmatically to her that they would kill her if she didn't kill them first.  
Before the gray Autobot could respond, Blitzangel transformed and retreated into the sky. Bluestreak was left sprawling on the ground in the wake of her surprisingly powerful engines.

* * *

Blitzangel did not return to the Ark for three more days. This time, she didn't go far. She often blipped on Red Alert's security system in random parts of the area. It was theorized that she no longer had the fuel to go anywhere.

The night of her retreat, a massive thunderstorm broke loose. All Autobots huddled in the depths of their base as the rain pelted the Ark and the thunder boomed and the lightning cracked. Harsh weather always played havoc on the Cybertronians' systems. It was one of the more miserable parts of living on Earth. Storms like this did not exist on Cybertron. It was certainly a new and unpleasant experience for those who recently arrived on the organic planet when it happened for the first time.

The brunt of the storm eventually thundered out. A limp, gray rain continued to fall for days after, as was the norm of the Oregon weather in springtime. Blitzangel remained in the elements, never seeking shelter. The tempest without was no contest to the chaos within. Just when she was beginning to feel normal again she had to land on this planet. What was she supposed to do now? Go back to trying to repair her broken programming herself? It wasn't really working; nothing really worked. The only thing that brought her any progress was getting away. And now, she was stuck closer than she ever wanted to be and there was no escape.

Blitzangel sat on the ground amidst the trees, the Ark and the volcano in the distance. She curled up, her knees to her chest, letting the rain pelt over her metal body. It made a hollow sound as it pinged on her skin. Blitzangel welcomed the noise. She felt hollow inside. There was nothing in this body, it was just a shell. Let the rain fall forever.

Then, the rain stopped. At least, it stopped falling on her. It was still raining just as hard everywhere else. Blitzangel raised her head and looked around. A massive figure was standing over her, silent as if he had drifted out of the morning mist. Or maybe she had just been too obsessed with her own pitiful depression to notice. He was more than twice her size, standing tall with arms crossed proudly over his chest in his seldom-seen root mode. The large, curved panels of his dinosaur form hunched from his back like wings. One acted as an umbrella to shield the small femme from the rain.

He stood quietly for a moment, even after he was discovered, as if he never meant to say anything at all.

"Hmm... me Grimlock think this more complicated than me know what to say." He never looked down at her, always gazing out at the base and the countryside. "But me do know outside can change easy. Name can change, too. Is no big deal. But inside not change so easy. Inside strong, stubborn. Inside stay same. Still same in there somewhere. Me Grimlock friend Crystal teach me this."

Blitzangel didn't move. Grimlock continued.

"Me Grimlock also know plane bots no like storms. Me Grimlock not sure why you out here when you can go in there. Though me probably know why. Autobots always act like-" He stopped and rubbed his chin. "What is word her Crystal teach me? It me Grimlock new favorite word... douche bag! Yes. Sometime Autobots big douche bags. So me Grimlock understand if you like rain more than them."

Blitzangel vented air as she stood. "I don't remember that," she admitted in a small voice.

"Me Grimlock sure it was you. Me call Optimus Prime douche bag. He not like that."

The femme hunched for a moment and then suddenly perked. "I remember. Optimus told me not to teach you any more."

"But Optimus Prime not here. You been with Decepticons. Must know new words now."  
That comment made the side of her mouth twitch just a little. "I know words in languages you've never even heard of."

Despite his lack of facial features, Grimlock managed to look pleased. "Me Grimlock can't wait."

The Dinobot leader walked her back to the entrance of the Ark. Bluestreak met her there, smiling like nothing had happened. He seemed to have been appointed her unofficial liaison. Grimlock transformed and lumbered off back into the rain in dinosaur mode, leaving her with the cheerful, gray Autobot. His optics were as bright and hopeful as ever, scaring any animosity right out of Blitzangel. The truth was that she wanted to be in his presence, but she just didn't know how to anymore.

"Well, I guess we'll need to find you a place to stay so you don't have to run around outside when you need time to yourself." Bluestreak said lightly, not asking for any explanation of her previous actions. He led her to a recognizable closet and pressed the button to open the door. "Here's your room, still intact," he announced proudly. "We uh... kinda kept hoping you would come back."

Blitzangel nudged just the tip of her foot in and looked at the familiar walls. Was it always this small? She couldn't survive in there. Her jet instincts were already writhing in claustrophobia just thinking about spending a single minute in there. She backed away from it.

Bluestreak took no offense. "No good, huh? We've got some normal-sized quarters. Most of them we gave away when the new transfers came in, but I think there's still a few that are empty. There's Prowl's old room. Or you can have Jazz's. Or the twins' quarters are empty, too. Take your pick."

* * *

Bluestreak flinched when the door opened. The twins had very spacious quarters, but there was a reason no one new had claimed them yet. The room was still full of their junk. The two had not attempted to clean it at all when they left, as if quite certain they would be back to reclaim it soon.

"Are you sure this is the one you want?" Bluestreak asked, looking apologetic for the state of the room.

Blitzangel wandered around inside. In one corner was the hammock Sunstreaker fashioned from metal cable that he would let no one else use under punishment of death. On a shelf were various odd collectibles, including something she recognized. The crystal statue with all the Autobots' signatures on it. But it was cracked and broken in two. Blitzangel didn't recall breaking it.

Even more clutter was scattered every which way on the floor with a single cot used more for leaving extra garbage upon than as an actual piece of sitting furniture.

"This is fine," Blitzangel said.

"If you're sure." Bluestreak sounded like he wished he could change her mind for her. "If this is what you want, I guess I'll leave you here Cry- uh.. sorry. I mean... If you need anything, you just let me know, okay?" Without thinking, he reached for her shoulder to give her a reassuring pat. The femme instantly shied away from the hand and Bluestreak quickly pulled it back, feeling stupid again.

"Whoops, sorry again. I'll just, you know, be around if you need me." He backed out of the room as he spoke, hastily shutting the door behind him in his awkward retreat.

* * *

Wheeljack returned to his workshop with a bundle of gadgets and gizmos commandeered from the med bay junk pile. He had been gone for a while, so the place was dark and quiet. He managed to flip on the lights with the bundle still in his arms, revealing a figure perched on a stool. Wheeljack made a less than courageous noise and dropped his spare parts.

Blitzangel didn't move from the stool. She continued to look down at the object in her hands. It was the tool locator device Wheeljack had let her use when she was still bunking with him in his laboratory. She had used it multiple times in the past when she was learning her way around the workshop and its contents.

Wheeljack took a few steps back, unsure what else to do. Everyone knew about the Autobot aggression in her program, but no one knew how she would react to them. He stood there, silent and frozen, for several moments, waiting for the purple femme to do something. Finally, she looked at him, her expression lost and aimless.

"Can I... help you with anything?" Wheeljack asked sincerely. If only she would ask for a diagnostic, that would probably help everyone.

Blitzangel shrugged, the action bringing life into her motionless body again. "I was just... trying to remember." She flipped the device over and Wheeljack discovered she hadn't been sitting so still in the dark after all. She had a screwdriver in her hand and was tightening the wires in the back of the gadget.

Wheeljack recalled he had stepped on the thing a few months ago and it stopped working. He didn't need it; he already knew what all his tools were called. So he had thrown it in his pile of other gadgetry that didn't work and left it there. Watching this femme tinker with it, the wheels in the inventor's processor began to turn. After reading all the reports of the feared Decepticon femme warrior, he had momentarily forgotten who she really was under that fierce design.

"So... I've got some projects I'm working on. Do you want to help me?"

She looked up at him, instantly intrigued.

Wheeljack easily pulled her into his world, as he had done with her almost a year prior when she had been a resident of his workshop. Soon, the place was cluttered with notes and schematics as he relayed to her all his current projects, which inventions had succeeded and were now going to the next step and which ones needed to go back to the drawing board. At first, Blitzangel listened quietly. Then, she began to jump in with her own comments and ideas. Wheeljack was amazed with her level of understanding. It had been a while, but he was quite sure she wasn't this well-educated last year.

When he asked her where she had learned these things, Blitzangel clammed up and grew quiet again. To make sure she didn't leave, Wheeljack quickly dropped the subject and started right into his charts and notes again like it never happened. Blitzangel was content to join in and leave the inventor to wonder.

As they started tinkering with various items, Wheeljack noticed another one of Blitzangel's old habits shining through. She kept trying to organize his workshop and she moved things around. Normally, he would have gotten after her for putting things where he wouldn't be able to find them later. But now, he let her do what she wanted. Any positive interaction with any of them had to be good for her. He was going to keep her in here and keep her occupied as long as he possibly could.

As she moved around the workshop, Wheeljack found himself watching her more and more. At first, he had just taken in the appearance of her as a total package. Now, he was starting to notice the different parts of her unfamiliar design, how the joints worked, how the parts of her body would slide into her alt mode. Wheeljack was so enamored with curiosity, he hadn't realized he had drifted too close to her until she jumped, almost hitting her head on his chest, and scrambled backward.

"Uh! Sorry!" Wheeljack floundered, realizing his mistake as he backed up to give her some room. "I was just looking at your design. The schematics Ratchet sent me aren't too detailed and..." He paused for a moment as an idea hit him. "Do you... want to see your own schematics?"

Blitzangel's expression tried to portray how she was feeling as several emotions bounced through her at once.

"Because," Wheeljack continued hastily, hoping to keep her intrigued. "You have some very interesting implements in your design. Your back strut system for one. It's an ingenious design. I've never seen anyone with your flexibility. I'd love to look inside the-"

Blitzangel put a hand on her chest and stumbled backward into the wall.

"What are you doing?" Wheeljack demanded. "Relax, I'm not going to take you apart or anything."

It was already too late. Blitzangel's emotions were rising a little too high. Whenever that happened, especially when there were Autobots around her, all emotions turned to anger. Her programming did not allow her to translate them into anything else.

Wheeljack, however, was neither afraid nor rueful of this response. He sat down on his stool, his posture forward. "Look, I understand what you're going through. Those Decepticons gutted you, they messed around in your systems, they mixed up your head. You feel nothing but anger all the time and you can't control it. But I also know you, and I remember those times when we sat you up here on this very table, going through all your systems wire by wire. I know that more than you are angry with me, you want to know what I've got and you want to see what's going on in that body of yours."

The two stared each other down. Blitzangel stood there stubbornly for several minutes. But in the end, Wheeljack won out, as he always did when science was concerned. If the mech had his own half hour of science on tv, Bill Nye would have nothing on him. And he had been right. Aside from her fear that stemmed from the origin of her new body, Blitzangel wanted to know about it, even if it meant facing that fear to find out.

"Let's start with those blades of yours," Wheeljack announced before she even gave verbal consent. "I've been wanting to see them up close."

Blitzangel snapped them open, perhaps with a lingering bit of belligerence, and Wheeljack jumped back from the sudden display.

"Whoa. That's cool!" The excitement in his voice was barely contained. Blitzangel then energized the blades for him. Wheeljack's response couldn't have been any happier if Santa himself had visited his house.

In no time, she was on the table, under a bright light with Wheeljack's full attention. The arm blades were a good place to start. Their lethal potential kept Wheeljack at a distance as he examined them, which kept him out of Blitzangel's personal space. In the middle of their discoveries, Wheeljack tipped his head as a distress call announced itself through the public radio frequency.

"Uh, I think First Aid is having some trouble with your friend in the medical bay."

The sentence was hardly complete when Blitzangel was off the table and out the door. She raced down the hallway, not paying attention to the few random Autobots she startled with her presence. Fear raced through her processor. What happened? Was Drift's damage more extensive than they thought? Had there been complications with his spark somehow? Was he dying?

Blitzangel tore into the med bay, fearing the worst, only to find Drift, alive and very active. He was still laying on the table, one of his swords in his hand. He was fending off a very startled First Aid who looked as though he did not want to tangle with the agitated white mech at all. Drift immediately stopped demanding the mech back off or he would cut his head off when he saw Blitzangel enter.

"Angel! Angel, get me out of here!"

She walked closer to him, but made no further effort to offer assistance.

"How did we get here?" Drift demanded. "I remember seekers and now suddenly we're in this Autobot base!" He lowered his voice to a hiss, though First Aid could still hear him. "There's Autobots everywhere!"

"Yes, I know," Blitzangel responded, neutral and calm. "We crashed here after the attack. This medic is trying to repair you."

Drift was still flat on his back, optics wild, holding his sword defensively in both hands. He was not buying it. "I can't move! He's trying to take me into custody!"

Blitzangel gave an unconvinced look to First Aid. The poor soft-spoken medic was backed into a corner as far as he could go, Drift's impressive sword just barely unable to reach him.

"I'm sorry," she said in a flat voice. "He gets a little high-strung sometimes." Then she turned back to Drift. "You idiot, you can't move because your back's been melted into a solid hunk of slag, remember?"

"But... but he DID something to me," Drift insisted. "I don't feel right. That Autobot drugged me!"

Blitzangel turned to First Aid for answers.

"I had to turn his central pain receptors off because of the damage," First Aid said timidly. "It's going to make him feel a little lightheaded and out of sorts without it."

"Liar!" Drift barked. "I'm not letting that Autobot quack near me! He's going to scramble my circuits, I just know it!" He kept the pointy end of his sword firmly between himself and First Aid.

Blitzangel snatched it out of his hands.

"Hey!"

Blitzangel walked over to First Aid, placing the sword a safe distance away from its owner.

"Why are you letting him scare you like that? He can't even move. You should just take charge and strap him down and tell him to shut up. That's what Ratchet would do."

First Aid sighed internally. It would have only been the 500th time he had been compared to the previous medical officer. "I don't want to force him down when he's clearly not comfortable with it."

"It doesn't matter. If you don't help him, he's not getting off that table." Blitzangel turned back to Drift. "You have to let him fix you. Do you want to spend the rest of your life like a turtle on its shell?"

"I don't know what that is," Drift said as he tried to sit up. All his attempts failed miserably. "But I'll die before I let that Autobot touch me. Give me back my sword."

"But... but I'm just trying to repair you," First Aid floundered from a safe distance. "I only want to help."

Drift, by now, had discovered the table he was set upon had wheels. He kicked off from the wall, causing a yelp from First Aid as he rolled toward him. The medic skittered out of the way and Drift found himself now stranded in the middle of the room, still unable to move. His sword was still juuust out of reach. He kept trying to stretch and struggle for it even as First Aid timidly tried to wheel his table back to where it had been. Drift immediately tried to kick at him.

Meanwhile, Blitzangel had busied herself fiddling with a few of the med bay monitors. She grabbed one of the mobile screens and aimed it in Drift's direction. The white mech was putting up another tantrum at being helpless to stop anything happening to him.

"Drift!" Blitzangel barked at him, getting his attention. It always did whenever she actually used his name.

He glanced her way, still fighting, and Blitzangel flipped on the screen. The dancing form of Rick Astley appeared on screen as music blared into the med bay.

_Never gonna give you up  
Never gonna let you down  
Never gonna run around and desert you_

Drift froze and stared.

_Never gonna make you cry  
Never gonna say goodbye  
Never gonna tell a lie and hurt you_

Drift was riveted. "Wheel me closer to that," he said to First Aid. The Autobot did what he was told, baffled into silence.

First Aid stood back next to Blitzangel, watching in awe as the frantic neutral was suddenly placated.

"Sometimes a little Rick Roll is what it takes," Blitzangel said to him. "Just keep pumping 80's music videos into that thing and he'll behave."

"I'm going to have to take him offline several times for his back surgeries," First Aid lamented. "He's not going to like it."

"Tell him he doesn't have a choice. Do what you've got to do," Blitzangel insisted. "That's what Ratchet would do."

First Aid vented air. "I know."

While the young medic reassessed his situation, Blitzangel wandered around the med bay. She allowed the memories to wash over her like gentle waves on a sandy beach. The place was so familiar to her, each item with its own thoughts and feelings from her past. She didn't fight it this time. There was no need to.

Her wanderings happened upon a heavy desk which did not appear to be in use by the present medic. It seemed not all medics needed a massive desk in the corner so they would have a place to brood over their paperwork. Blitzangel sat upon the broad seat. It was strange to be on this side of the desk. It was even stranger not to hear Ratchet's voice within these walls.

She remembered the last time she saw him. It certainly wasn't the first time he had frustrated her, but she regretted their last conversation. She still didn't want the kind of help he offered. It was the kind where he probably would have strapped her down and told her it was for her own good as well if she had stayed around long enough. But it still felt strange not to have him here.

* * *

It was dark when Blitzangel wandered outside the Ark again. Everywhere she went, Autobots were scarce. She knew why. Red Alert was probably keeping tabs on her whereabouts, alerting the others to where she was. Even when she went to the rec room for some energon, there was nobody to be found. Internally she was glad of it, but she also felt bad to have everyone avoid her like this. It didn't feel right when the Ark so empty. It didn't fit her memories.

Outside, however, the stars were the same. They were always the same. The sounds of the night, the crickets and the traffic in the distance, those were the same as well. After being off-planet for so long, Blitzangel now realized how unique the noises of Earth were.

"Hi again!"

Blitzangel looked up. There, camouflaged in the darkness, was Bluestreak. He was sitting on the side of the volcano, perhaps gazing and listening just as she was.

"I remembered that you used to come out here and look at the sky a lot, you know, from before," he explained. "I was kind of hoping that if I waited, you would come out."

Without further invitation, Blitzangel climbed up and sat next to him. She didn't mind the Autobot's presence. As long as she couldn't see his symbol and her emotions stayed calm she would be fine. The two sat in silence for a while, but Blitzangel could tell that Bluestreak was getting antsy with the dead air. She waited patiently for him to speak his mind.

"You know... I know you didn't... like me very much," Bluestreak said to his knees. "I wish I was someone else, someone you trusted. But if you'll let me, I'll try to help you if I can."

The darkness seemed to swallow the femme even though she was right next to him. Only the red optic band was visible in the night. Bluestreak focused on it.

"It's okay, I'm glad you're here," her voice said softly. "I like you very much, I do... Bluestreak."  
His charcoal door panels perked just a bit at the sound of his name. It was positive confirmation that she really did know him, that she was remembering. He reached for her, then paused, forgetting himself. She was already stiffening from the motion, like a stray cat when someone was coming too close.

Bluestreak pulled back, resting his hand back on his knee. He wasn't sure why he kept trying to touch her. She always looked so lost, even when standing perfectly still. He wanted to assure her in ways that words could not that she was safe and she was home. Without the ability to touch her, Bluestreak was at a loss on what to do. He looked out at the dark countryside, the city lights in the distance, as his mind tried to think.

"We looked for you." The words tumbled out of his vocalizer before he could even process what he was saying. "We looked for a really long time, but we just couldn't ever find you. The Decepticons would never admit they had anything to do with your disappearance. They pretended like they didn't know what we were looking for. After a while, some of the guys thought you were probably dead. Prowl never listened to them, though. It's like he knew the truth, no matter what anyone else told him. He came up with so many different plans and schemes, trying to get the Decepticons to give us something."

Bluestreak's gaze remained looking out at the dark surroundings. "We raided the Nemesis twice. The second time, we blew it up when we didn't find you. You were already off the planet. No one knew where to go from there. Not even Prowl."

He still didn't look at her. It was as if he was afraid of what he would see. His nerves made his mouth continue moving.

"The remaining Decepticons are scattered now. It's real quiet here on Earth these days. Prime just wants a few of us around to-"

He paused when he felt something lightly touch his hand. Slowly, he gazed down, not making any sudden moves. They could barely be seen in the dim light, thin black fingers timidly brushing the back of his hand. It was as if she wanted to touch him, but no longer knew how. Bluestreak stayed patient with her. He allowed her to keep her hands on his for as long as she wanted and did not ask for anything in return. It was a small victory, but Bluestreak considered it a victory nonetheless.

The two finally decided they had enough of the night sky and walked in together. Bluestreak wasn't sure if he was imagining it or not, but it seemed Blitzangel walked closer to him than she had before. Her progress seemed promising. It made his steps lighter, it made Bluestreak want to hum, but he refrained from doing so. It was a good thing she came to Earth. They could help her here.

The two walked in companionable silence down the corridors of the Ark. Bluestreak didn't notice right at first, but there was another Autobot standing in the doorway of one of the rooms. This Autobot looked quite a bit like him, only his bright blue and red coloring was a stark difference to Bluestreak's muted gray.

"Well, well, look who's still alive," Smokescreen commented as they walked past. Even though he had been ordered not to engage the femme, she had been here long enough, he figured he could get away with a comment. It was too hard not to. "Everyone wondered about you. Looks like you proved quite a few of us wrong."

Blitzangel glanced at him momentarily as she walked past. Her expression was blank, as if she had no idea who he was or if he was even talking to her. She continued down the hall, her processor going through the faces in her scrambled memory bank, trying to pair any past information with the face. Suddenly, she found a match and the emotional response that came with it hiked her system into alert.

She wasn't even aware of what she was doing when the aggression program kicked in at full force. Bluestreak was left unable to figure out what to do as the femme at his side turned and suddenly charged. Smokescreen already regretted opening his big mouth as Blitzangel raced toward him. She leaped into the air, arm blades poised to attack. Luckily, the blue Autobot had enough sense about him to use the force of her attack to throw her off. The femme landed nimbly on the ground and instantly rebounded in another charge.

Smokescreen ducked and dodged as the yellow, glowing blades swiped at his head and chest. Bluestreak ran around and grabbed the femme around the waist from behind.

"Crys-Blitzangel, stop!" he called frantically.

She instantly turned on her new attacker. Faster than Bluestreak could realize what was going on, he was face down on the floor. A foot planted itself sharply in his back strut and Blitzangel grabbed the doors protruding from his back. Bluestreak couldn't help but yelp, partially in pain, but mostly from surprise, as she yanked as if to tear them from his body.

The sound of his voice was piercing enough for Blitzangel to pause. The hateful frown on her face dropped immediately to be replaced with fear at what she had done. She was instantly off the startled, gray Datsun and backing up.

"Bluestreak, I'm sorry, I didn't- I couldn't control..."

The walls felt too close, the ceiling too low. Her processor was jumbled again, clouded with anger and frustration. She had to get out of there before she did anything worse. She needed to get away from them. With one last glance at Bluestreak's wide optics she fled down the corridor toward the exit.

She hadn't gotten far, however, when a figure stepped out, blocking her path to the outside. His marred frame was still so strange to look at, it didn't fit in with the rest of Blitzangel's memories. It startled and stupefied her senses, making it harder to respond to his appearance. Tracks, however, knew exactly what he was doing, even as the femme raced toward him.

"Sorry," he said with a small smirk. "You're not leaving this time."

Blitzangel couldn't react quickly enough. All she was aware of was the fist racing up to collide with her face. Then nothing as her circuits lurched, glitching from the impact. Everything went black as she dropped into unconsciousness.


	12. Chapter 12: Interference

Rising Generations  
Chapter 12: Interference

For the second time, Blitzangel came online in the Ark's medbay. This time was a little different. For one, she wasn't strapped down. Also, she didn't feel so pleasant when she came to. The punch to the face, the shock of that impact right to her processor, had caused her systems to do a forced reboot. She had a momentary woozy feeling of motion sickness before her systems compensated. She also noticed there was now a crack running up the side of her optic band.

Another difference was that this time there were a handful of Autobots standing around the area. They were far enough away to give her space, but clearly blocking her way out. Most prominent was Wheeljack, standing at the front of the group with more confidence than the others. Perceptor and First Aid stood less assertively behind him with Bluestreak timidly hunching in the back, peering around them.

Blitzangel immediately realized she was being ganged up on and went on the defensive.

"What's going on?" she demanded.

"An intervention is what's going on," said Wheeljack.

Blitzangel scrambled off the bed and backed away from them. "What are you talking about?"  
"You need to let us remove that aggression program," the inventor continued. "I know you don't like it, but you're going to have to let one of us go in there and delete it. Or else someday you're going to end up doing something you regret, and you know it."

"No," Blitzangel said firmly as she backed against the wall.

Wheeljack folded his arms over his chest. "I'm sorry, but you're not leaving this med bay until you agree to it, and that was not my decision. After your attack on Smokescreen, Ultra Magnus said he's done putting up with you if you can't control yourself."

Perceptor looked like he wanted to intervene and soften Wheeljack's harsh tone, but he wasn't sure what to say.

Blitzangel continued to frown stubbornly. "No. I'm not going to let anyone reprogram me again."

"We're not reprogramming you. We're removing a program that shouldn't have been in there in the first place. That is all. You know us," Wheeljack insisted. "It's just going to be me and Perceptor. We've monkeyed around in your systems many times before and you've never had a problem with it. This time won't be any different."

Blitzangel still didn't look convinced.

"You're not leaving this medbay without getting that program removed. There's guards at the door this time, kid." After a pause he added, "we WILL sic the Dinobots on you if we have to."

"I'll fix it myself," Blitzangel insisted. "I've been working on it. I just need more time."

"I'm afraid there's no such thing as enough time for that procedure," Perceptor said matter-of-factly. "It's impossible to reformat one's own self. You need to be completely offline for the entire program to be deleted."

Blitzangel visibly wilted a bit at that news. All her work, for nothing?

Wheeljack vented some air. "I didn't want to have to stoop this low, but you leave me little choice."

He grabbed Bluestreak and, with a squeak of surprise, hauled the gray Datsun up to Blitzangel's face. "Do you WANT to hurt Bluestreak again?"

"She didn't really hurt me THAT much," Bluestreak floundered.

"Quiet." Wheeljack shook him a little, then turned to the femme. "Do you?"

Blitzangel suddenly looked crestfallen and regretful. "No," she said softly.

"Then agree to this procedure. Perceptor and I will give you our word we will do nothing but delete the aggression program. Everything else will remain untouched. You will be able to have control over yourself again. Isn't that what you want?"

The purple femme looked at the inventor, then at Bluestreak. She vented some air and, in a shuddering voice, agreed.

* * *

Bluestreak stayed by Blitzangel's side as Perceptor and Wheeljack took her offline. His hands hovered next to hers, but he didn't touch her. As Blitzangel slipped offline, a momentary look of fear crossed her face and Bluestreak couldn't help but clutch her hand in reassurance. The gesture was probably lost on the femme; she had already fallen into stasis.

With Blitzangel offline, the work could begin. Bluestreak was kicked out. Wires and cords were plugged into the femme's systems so Wheeljack and Perceptor could start to run the diagnostic. They had to locate the program before they could delete it. While running, the diagnostic would also give the scientists an idea as to the current state of her programming as a whole.

"Find anything, Wheeljack?" asked the gruff voice on the screen. It was broadcasting all the way from Cybertron, so the audio and picture were a bit fuzzy.

"I'm still looking, Ratchet Give me a klick or two here."

There was an deliberate sound of impatience at the other end. Ratchet always liked to do things himself. Wheeljack was sure the medic would reach right through the screen and take the keyboard out of his hands if he could.

"I still don't know, for the spark of me, how you of all bots let her get away without so much as a proper checkup," Wheeljack said as he continued to work.

Another tired sound of frustration came from the screen. "We should have taken her home immediately when we had the chance. But you weren't there, Wheeljack. We just ... none of us knew what to do for her. And when she asked something of us, we all stupidly listened, thinking we were doing what was best."

"Well, we know better now," Wheeljack replied. "Can you believe she was trying to reprogram herself?"

"Ugh, that girl. I believe it."

Wheeljack sat back in his chair as the computer connected to the part of the programming he was aiming for. Countless lines began scrolling across the screen. Perceptor stepped behind him to get a look at the information. He made a noise indicating he didn't like what he saw.

"What? What's it look like?" Ratchet demanded, frustrated he couldn't see for himself.

"It's a slagging cluster of a mess," Wheeljack reported in a tired tone of voice. "I wouldn't even know where to begin to repair it."

"If we were to repair it, which we will not," Perceptor reminded him.

"Right, right. But Primus, Ratchet, I'm really surprised she reacts as well as she does. There are so many different strings of coding in here from multiple programmers. So many of her primary functions have been fiddled with. I don't know where she got all this."

"Well, we know there was an Autobot femme medic who tinkered a little," Perceptor offered. "Before then, it's suspected she was in the hands of Decepticon females, who apparently still survive after all. And before then, any members of Megatron's team could have tampered with her. If it happened on Cybertron, Shockwave was surely the base programmer."

Wheeljack leaned back in his chair, one arm over the back. "It would have to be. I don't know who else could do such a massive rewrite. And we don't know what else she may have encountered since then. On Xartin, plus those months with that neutral. Primus only knows where they've been, or how she ever found that mech in the first place."

"Send me copies," Ratchet said on the screen. "I want a full report on everything you find."

"As do I," Ultra Magnus said as he walked in. His impressive bulk paused for a moment as he made sure the femme was completely offline before walking in. It had been no accident that he had not shown himself to their new guest the entire time she had been there. His first and only interaction with the femme was full of explosions and slicing of limbs. He felt it more prudent to keep himself unseen until the full mental capacity and temperament of the femme were evaluated.

"Did you find anything more about who attacked the two of them?"

"Not so much, no," Perceptor responded. He'd had the most experience dealing with the new base commander. "First Aid said the neutral - Drift, I believe his name is - mentioned that the altercation was with some seekers, but that is all we have learned so far. The wounds were acid burns, damage from energy blades and a back strut melted solid from a massive heat source, so I'd have to say they weren't inflicted by any of Megatron's usual seekers … unless he has employed himself some new soldiers we were not aware of."

"When I tried to question our femme here, she clammed right up," Wheeljack put in. "But after we get this finished, we'll work on getting some answers."

"I also want assurance that after the aggression program is taken out, we will not have another incident like the one we had earlier," Ultra Magnus told them.

Wheeljack typed away on the keypad. "Deletion of the aggression program is not an immediate fix-all. Our systems become accustomed to running a program, whether it is still there or not. It will take a while for her to get used to functioning without it."

"Which means?" the commander pressed.

"It means she may be a bit on the cranky side for a while. But, it should be the end of the sudden attacks. At least she will have control over her body again."

"So that just means she won't attack any of my Autobots unless she really wants to." Ultra Magnus frowned.

"She doesn't want to," Wheeljack insisted in a flat voice. "That's not the kind of bot she is."

"You mean, 'that isn't the kind of bot she was,'" the base commander shot back. "What kind of guarantee do I have? I do not want to repair another one of my soldiers because of her."

Wheeljack shrugged, a little flippantly. "You can always put her in with the Dinobots. She likes them. And they can take any abuse she may dish out. Just keep Smokescreen away from her."

"So she didn't like Smokescreen in the first place," Ultra Magnus surmised, sounding like something finally made sense to him.

"Oh, not at all," the inventor confirmed, not looking up. "He seemed to enjoy pushing her buttons while she lived here. I have no doubt that that was part of the reason for her reaction. I also have no doubt that, if we keep her around Autobots she has a positive association with, she will react positively toward them. Unfortunately, several of her favorite Autobots are-"

"On Cybertron," Ultra Magnus finished with a sigh in his voice. "Wonderful."

"Not that we still don't have a few aces here. Bluestreak is one, obviously. Perceptor and I both had positive interactions with her."

"Perhaps you more than I," Perceptor corrected him. "Remember, she more or less just tolerated my curiosity."

Ultra Magnus was quiet for a moment, considering his options. "Alright, we'll proceed carefully. But another incident and I am through being lenient. If Optimus Prime himself hadn't asked for my cooperation in this, we would be having a very different conversation right now."

"Yes, sir," both scientists responded.

Ultra Magnus almost looked like he would leave right then, but tipped his head at them. "The Dinobots? Really?"

"I know," Wheeljack agreed. "But they like her. Well, Slag doesn't like anybody, but, you know, most of them anyway."

Ultra Magnus just nodded, looking perplexed.

"Anything else, sir?" Wheeljack asked, hoping it was enough of a cue to get the base commander out of the med bay so he could get back to work.

"Yes," Ultra Magnus said. He pressed his palms to the table, authority in his voice. "All of you fragged up big time with this, and I mean everyone involved with this botched attempt at cheating nature. The only thing that gets in my grill more is the fact that I'm now the one who has to clean up this mess."

And with that, he stormed out of the room.

"He seems quite pleasant to work with," Ratchet said, having witnessed the entire conversation.

Wheeljack shrugged it off. "I don't think Earth agrees with him too much. There hasn't been a whole lot to do around here lately." He went back to his typing. "I think I found the program. It looks like whoever wrote it didn't expect anyone ever to try to delete it. It's right out here in the open. And while I take care of that, I'm just going to upload a little something to help her out."

"We promised we wouldn't tamper in her programming," Perceptor reminded him. "I can't agree to this, even if it does assist her."

"What are you doing, Wheeljack?" Ratchet asked, warning in his tone.

"Relax. I'm not changing anything. I'm just adding a little piece of software to help her put proper timestamps on her memories. It's the one you wrote for Prowl when he was having a similar problem, remember, Perceptor? Without his battle computer, the memories it used to block were interfering with his perception of the present. I'm sure this is going to help Crystal -or Blitzangel or whatever she wants to be called- to get her scrambled files in the right order."

"Just what, precisely, ARE we expected to call her?" Perceptor wondered. "Bluestreak said he did not have a positive experience attempting to establish any title at all. She doesn't seem too keen on being addressed by her original Earth designation any longer."

"If I may," First Aid poked his head into the area. "I've heard the neutral refer to her as just 'Angel'. She seems to respond to it without any repercussions."

"I guess we could give it a try," Wheeljack said.

"Who is this neutral she's been with?" Ratchet asked through the screen. "What do we know about him?"

"According to Ultra Magnus, his name is Drift," Perceptor offered. "He claims neutrality. Our records don't have much about him. He is hardly ever on Cybertron. He only lands on the planet to trade for supplies. The Autobots have been unable to locate any further information about his past. No doubt he changed his identity to escape the war. Certainly, he would not be the first."

"So we really have no idea if this mech was ever Autobot or Decepticon," Ratchet surmised.

"He doesn't seem to be too comfortable surrounded by Autobots," First Aid offered. "I don't know if that is because he is worried someone might recognize him or for other reasons. But he's quite a handful. I have to keep taking him offline to get any work done on his injuries."

"Do what you have to do. He's not our priority; she is." Ratchet paused. "She's not... with him, is she?"

"I don't... think so. They obviously know each other, but she didn't pay him any type of special attention. She's only visited him in the med bay once since she's been here."

Ratchet made a tired sound. "Slag, this is such a mess."

"And we're working on fixing it," Wheeljack said. "It's just going to take a while. She wants help, Ratchet, she just doesn't know how to ask. She never knew how to ask." There was a pause. "Do you want to stay online when I wake her up?"

Ratchet's expression immediately went flat. "No." And he cut the connection. The screen went blue.

Even Wheeljack was a bit surprised at that response. He could only guess what exactly had happened up at Iacon. He had a feeling Ratchet was leaving something out of the report, something more personal. There was not much to be done about it now, though. Wheeljack got back to work.

* * *

As her systems started up, it felt like a flood gate had opened. What had been blocked now flowed freely and swirled around in her subconsciousness. Events played themselves backward from the present, like a movie on rewind, everything snapping back in order to where it should be. There was something, a sound in the background, a song. It caused her memory to stop on one moment in particular.

It was a warm, summer evening. The breeze played with her long, copper hair. Her worn sneakers were comfortable on her feet. She was waiting by a fence. Next to her, a small robot with a blue optic band and a white four painted on his chest idled with her. They were waiting for other robots like him to come, but in the meantime, he was fiddling with her cell phone. He made it so he could call her on it. That song she could hear was her ring tone. That song made her think of him.

Blitzangel's optic band flickered on and she felt lonely. She missed him.

"Jazz..." she muttered softly.

A face peered over her. "How do you feel now?"

Fear rippled through Blitzangel's body. Someone was standing over her on an examining table. It was a scene that happened to her far too much for comfort. Her arm shot out, grabbing the neck of the hovering bot, keeping him from getting closer.

"As I said," Wheeljack grunted. "It's not an immediate fix-all."

Blitzangel let him go and quickly sat up, moving away from him to get some space. "Sorry," she said without any remorse in her voice.

"It's okay, I understand." Wheeljack nodded without a grudge. "I should have been a bit more subtle."

Blitzangel gave him a sideways look. "I was not aware you knew how to do subtly."

Wheeljack paused and then chuckled. "You're probably right. So you do you feel then?"

Blitzangel looked down at her hands and rolled her shoulders. "I don't know, about the same. I can't really tell too much of a difference."

"Good," Wheeljack confirmed. "As I said, we did not meddle with your programming, we merely removed something that should have never been there."

She gave him a very thin shadow of a smile and nodded her head.

"And we fixed your optic band. You didn't request it, but I didn't think you would mind since your old one had that large crack in it. And uh, I took the liberty of changing the color while I was at it."

Blitzangel instantly turned to the metallic wall and she could see a lime-green light in the reflection. The same color as her original optics.

"I think it matches you better," Wheeljack continued.

Blitzangel touched the optic band while still looking at her fuzzy reflection. Then she rubbed at the side of her face, as if an old wound began to hurt. There was still music playing in the background and she finally realized the music wasn't coming from inside her head. A-Ha's "Take on Me", her cell phone's ring tone, was playing in the back of the med bay. She followed it and found, around an impromptu wall, Drift. He was still flat on his back, immobile, but he now had a screen at his feet and a keyboard with a controller on his chest. 80's music was streaming in through the speakers while Drift surfed the internet.

"Oh, Angel. They told me you were getting some kind of... procedure done. How did it go?"

She pulled up a stool to perch next to him. "Fine... I suppose."

He took note of her new optic band. "Nice color." Then he turned back toward his screen. "I'm still marveling over this planet. I am learning so much on their internet. I thought Earth didn't even know about other life forms in space. And yet, here's an Autobot base, right here on this planet. Boy someone out there sure has their information wrong." He paused and gave her his full attention. "But you know these Autobots, don't you?"

"Some of them," she said softly.

"That's how you knew about Earth. You were stationed here with them when you used to be an Autobot."

Blitzangel raised a hand to him, it hovered in hesitance for a moment, then she lay her palm on his forehead, thumb rubbing the bridge of his nose. "That is a true enough statement, I suppose."

Drift froze, afraid to move as if it were some mythical creature sitting beside him, touching him.

"I have to get out of here for a while," she announced.

"Um...okay." It wasn't as if he could make any move to stop her. "Don't leave me for too long. I'm kind of stuck like this until that Autobot medic finishes building me a new spine and scraping off my old one. It's... kind of boring here."

Blitzangel already had her back to him. "I'm sorry, I'll try to come back."

* * *

The Ark didn't seem so much like a ghost vessel this time when she made her way through it. The Autobots were keeping away from her, but the energy of their presence still lingered in the halls and the noise of them carrying on business in the various rooms rattled like an apparition in the air. It felt as if someone were testing her, daring her to take the bait. But their presence didn't bother Blitzangel any more. She walked through the din calmly toward the open air.

The rains were gone now, allowing the sun to dry the swollen Earth. Green ran rampant over the countryside. Blitzangel had intended to fly off into the sky and find herself some space, but something held her back this time. She remembered now. She remembered why she never went too far from the Autobot base before. Because she did not know how to exist in the world of humans without being human. Now she did-and yet, still did not. She could fly as far and as fast as she wanted, but there wasn't anywhere else on this planet she could be. There was no where she could land where it felt like she belonged. This base was it. The Ark was all she had.

This fact alone frustrated her, but her pool of anger was more shallow now, as if someone had pulled a cork from the bottom and it was all leaking out. Her anger was still there, but sadness was just as easily filling her emotions. It left her feeling aimless and lost. What was the purpose of flying if one had nowhere to fly to?

Amidst her conundrum, Blitzangel became aware that there was someone else nearby. A darkly colored Autobot was standing in the shadow of the volcano, a few yards out. He waved at her when he was spotted. She recognized him instantly. With the block gone, her memory files popped up without much effort.

"Hound."

"Yup, that's me." He stood there casually. Hound did everything casually. It seemed there wasn't anything that neither hurried nor worried the green Autobot. There was something about him that was always more relaxed than the others.

"Thinking of leaving us again?"

"I was," Blitzangel admitted. "But... there's really nowhere else to go."

"I hear Cancun is a nice place to visit."

Her mouth twitched slightly. "Yes, that's what I need, sand in places where the sun doesn't shine. I'm sure they'll never notice me among the other tourists."

Hound just continued to smile at her with his easy grin. "Why don't you walk with me for a bit then?"

Blitzangel's face went blank for a moment, then she took two steps forward and paused. Hound continued to wait for her patiently until she continued a few more steps to cross the distance between them. When she was almost there, the sharp tip of her foot caught on a rock and she stumbled. Hound leaned forward, offering his arm for her to catch, like offering a perch to a bird.

Blitzangel grabbed it in relief. Both for not falling on her face, and that Hound had not tried to grab her. She quickly righted herself and pulled away.

"Some things don't change so easily." Hound grinned.

"I suppose not," she admitted as she looked down. "My feet are quite a bit bigger now. It's a wonder I'm not tripping all over the countryside."

"They are, but I think you are managing just fine." Hound began to walk, motioning with his head for her to follow. "What do you think of that new body? It's quite a drastic change from your old one."

"I... haven't really given it much thought," she replied as she walked. "It's just the body I'm in. Same as the first time." She rubbed at her arm, the fingers drifting down to scratch idly at the slits in her forearms where her blades would spring out. "I feel safer in this body."

"Do you?"

"Yes. I'm stronger in this body, faster. I can protect myself now." The tone of her voice and her steps grew more aggressive as they rounded the dormant volcano. She was now walking faster than Hound and he picked up the pace to keep up.

"That's probably true," he nodded. "It is certainly nice to be able to take care of yourself in our line of work. No one can blame you for wanting that." He paused and then added. "If you don't mind me saying so, I find this design exquisite."

Blitzangel paused right in her tracks and stared at him. She even twitched slightly as she thought about it. "You're saying... I'm pretty?" She asked in a flat voice as if she didn't believe him.

"Well, yes. I hope that doesn't offend you. But I find the design aesthetically pleasing."

Blitzangel looked down at herself. She couldn't tell the difference between what made one design pleasing to the optic and the other not. Her frown was making Hound worried. He may have gone too far with the compliment. But before he could rectify the matter, Blitzangel noticed her emergency pod, still sitting where it had been dropped. She walked right up to it, using the thrusters on her feet to hop on the hood. It was pretty much still in tact, it only needed minor repairs and to refuel.

"Not the most luxurious way to travel," Hound commented, hoping it would get her talking without appearing like he was fishing for information.

"Yeah," Blitzangel agreed. "Drift isn't going to be too happy when he finds out his shuttle is still in space. Not that it's in the best condition when we left it. They may have blown it up after we ran, for all I know."

Hound tipped his head as he looked up at her. "They?"

Blitzangel sat herself down on top of the pod, legs dangling off the end. "Seekers. They came out of nowhere. We couldn't stop them from getting inside." Her tone turned bitter as if angry at a personal failure. "We didn't stand a chance against them."

"Megatron's seekers," Hound surmised. "Skywarp probably got them in close and-"

"No, it wasn't them." She cut him off sharply as she slid back down to stand next to Hound. "I've seen Megatron's army. He only has three seekers who don't respond to a serial number and can still think for themselves. I had never seen these seekers before. They weren't Decepticons."

"Are they still in the area? If your shuttle is just out in Earth's atmosphere, we could possibly retrieve it."

She gave a regretful smile. "It's long gone. We had to warp jump to get away from them. If they decided to follow, and I'm not even sure they will, it's going to take them a while. To be honest, landing on Earth was an accident. I wasn't aiming for it. I was just trying to get us away with our lives. We had no chance against them, Hound. I really hope they don't come here."

Hound worried about that. It was what had Ultra Magnus worried as well and why he was getting so antsy about their new guests the longer they stayed there. "That certainly wouldn't be good. So what kind of fire power would you say they had?"

"They didn't use any firearms," Blitzangel replied as she eyed the pod up and down. She pressed a button and the door swung upwards to let her in.

Hound was confused. He had seen the state the two were in when they stumbled out of the pod. Everyone did. Those massive injuries had to have come from somewhere.

"That doesn't make any sense. How could they have inflicted so much damage without-"

"I said they didn't use any!" Blitzangel shot back, her voice rising an octave in frustration. She stepped into the pod and slammed the door shut behind her, locking Hound out.

She sat herself down in the pilot seat of the shuttle, relishing the silence within. Blitzangel didn't care if she was rude. Everywhere she turned, there was another Autobot and she needed her space from them, from their hopeful faces and their constant questions. Couldn't they leave her alone just for a few minutes while she tried to sort everything out herself? Was that too much to ask for?

There was a clicking on her personal radio. Apparently it was. Reluctantly, she turned it on, but was presently surprised when she heard Drift's voice over the line.

"Hey, you thinking about me? Or have you already forgotten I'm here?"

She couldn't help but smile. "I'm in your escape pod right now. It reminds me of you."  
"Because it keeps you safe, right?"

"Or because it bails at the first sign of danger."

"Oh, ouch!"

It felt better to talk to Drift. He was one mech who never demanded that she think about any of her past.

"So why are you calling me? I haven't been gone more than twenty minutes," she wondered.

"Well the doc's going to take me offline soon. I'm getting a little loopy without my pain receptors. I just wanted to let you know and... make sure you're okay... I guess. I don't know the story about this place, but I haven't said anything to anyone, even though they've been grilling me. They're probably listening in on this conversation right now. But you let me know what you want me to do and I'll do it. If you don't want me to say anything, I'll continue giving them the amnesia plea."

Blitzangel felt herself soften at hearing him. Neither one of them allowed the other to get too personal into their past business. Now that her past was catching up to her, Drift had no idea where to stand to be on her side. But he was telling her he was still on her side and he would be willing to do whatever she needed. She appreciated that.

"It's okay. I'm okay. You can tell them whatever you want. I don't mind."

"Okay well... when they bring me back into the world of the living, come see me okay? I know I appear useless, being stuck on my back and all... at the mercy of the Autobots... but I can still help you if, you know, you need anything."

Blitzangel smirked to herself at that. "I'll keep that in mind. Have a nice nap." She cut the connection.

There was tapping on the glass above her. Blitzangel looked up and squawked in surprise at the massive jaws bared before here.

"Hello! It me Grimlock!" he bellowed louder than he needed to.

The view was blocked out entirely by Swoop's large wingspan as he landed on the glass and pecked at it with his beak. There was another knock, this time at the hatch. Blitzangel opened the window to her side to see who it was.

"We're towing this thing around back," Wheeljack called to her. "You're welcome to stay in there for the ride."

Just as he spoke, an emergency call hailed on all Autobot frequencies.

"This is Red Alert. Has anyone seen the Arielbots? Powerglide has sent out a distress signal- Decepticons. And they are the only ones who can get to him in time. The Arielbots aren't responding! Anyone who sees them, tell them to turn their radios on!"

"Arielbots. Useless of all Autobots," Grimlock grumbled. "Make Dinobots look better. That what Wheeljack say."

"Me Swoop can fly!" The pteranodon offered. "Me go fight Decepticons!"

Blitzangel was already climbing out the window to get on top of the shuttle. Then, with a screaming of engines, she took off into the sky. In mere seconds, she was but a dot in the distance.

"Me Swoop...not fly that fast," he apologized. "But me still go help." He took off into the air after the femme.

Behind him, Red Alert's voice still worried over the radio. "Hello? Something just happened. Somebody tell me what just happened! Hello?"

* * *

Powerglide was booking it back to base as fast as his engines could propel him. One wing was damaged and smoking. While he was certainly fast for his size and design, he had to admit, though it wounded his pride to do so, he was no match for the three Decepticons closing in fast. Thrust, Ramjet and Dirge. The trio wasn't a large worry to the Autobots in general. Three against the entire base was an easy contest. So the Decepticon trio usually only picked fights with lone Autobots they happened to surprise. They were just as fast as any seeker and Powerglide had no luck shaking them. Outnumbered, his last resort was to race toward the Ark, hoping reinforcements would catch up to him before the Decepticons did.

He was still quite a ways away, his own fault for lollygagging around alone so far from his home base. Up ahead, however, something was coming and closing in fast. At first, Powerglide thought it was one of the Arielbots. But the size and shape were wrong. Not to mention the color and the sound the engines made. There was also no radio greeting on any Autobot frequency as the unidentified craft bee-lined straight for him. It buzzed past only a few inches above Powerglide's cockpit before slamming into the middle of the Decepticon formation behind him.

Dirge was in the lead, with the other two flanking him on either side. He was in mid fire when the other jet screamed toward him. Then suddenly, Dirge just wasn't there any more. The remaining two Decepticons collectively slowed their thrusters from surprise as Dirge and whatever had run into Dirge tumbled through the heavy clouds below and out of sight. More upsetting was the distress signal following after. No words, just a rampant distress signal.

"What the frag just happened?" Thrust demanded.

Ramjet's cross-hairs were still zeroed in on Powerglide as he weighed attacking the Autobot against going after whatever took out one of his team. Thrust was already banking downward. Powerglide would have to wait until next time. The two jets descended through the thick clouds to a lower altitude, scanners on full alert. Dirge's position was low, too low. If he hadn't crashed to the ground already, he most certainly would be doing that in the next few seconds. The unidentified object was already racing back up toward them.

Thrust and Ramjet transformed into their root modes, hoping it would give them better mobility to dodge and fire at whatever was after them. But the unidentified craft slowed down as it approached and transformed as well, floating before them.

"Primus, it's a femme!" Thrust gawked.

"Then she must be an Autobot," Ramjet growled. "Take her down."

The femme rushed Thrust first, almost as fast in root mode as she was in jet mode. She grabbed his arm as he fired, missing by a hair. She twisted the arm behind his back, pulling hard until they were both spinning. The femme was stronger than she looked. The two spun together until she let go, propelling Thrust into the stupefied Ramjet.

The two Decepticons stumbled through the air as they collided. A body with screaming jet thrusters shot after them, pressing them downward faster than gravity could pull. The Decepticons were a mess of limbs and panic before the heavy hit of Earth and everything went black.

* * *

Ramjet came online, shoulder cables spasming and several wires sparked angrily at being exposed. He was aware he was being dragged across the ground by one arm. The rest took a while to process. All around him were walls. Garishly orange metal walls.

"Frag me sideways," he croaked. "I'm in the Autobot base."

"You're lucky your not in the Matrix," a female voice growled back.

Ramjet tipped his head back toward the one doing the dragging. It was that dark colored femme. Who was she?

The sound of a swinging metal door reached his audios. Ramjet was hoisted none too gently to his feet and shoved inside an empty cell next to the two currently occupied cells of his wing mates.  
He stumbled, but found his balance, his anger finally remembering itself.

"Who the slag are you, femme?" he spat. "You think you're better than me because you caught me by surprise? You couldn't take me in a real fight!"

The femme just frowned at him. "As I recall, your idea of a real fight was to gang up three against one on small, unarmed maintenance bots. And to my recollection, you didn't always win those battles either."

The Decepticon stared. "No... That wasn't you."

"I could slice your knee joints again for old time's sake."

Ramjet's anger continued to rise. "You dare talk to me like that, maintenance bot? I don't care what you look like, that's all you are and I can take you out any time I-"

Blitzangel spun, her heavy foot planting solidly in his chest and Ramjet flew across the cell into the far wall.

"You're so pathetic!" she barked at him. "You just pick on everything smaller than you because it's the only thing you CAN beat. Where is your Decepticon pride in that? Where's your victory now, huh? Enjoy your windowless prison. It's going to be along time before you ever see the sky again. Dicks!" She spat the last word at the three collectively and slammed the cell door on Ramjet.

"Um, hey-" Began Kup, who had been nearby almost the entire time.

"What?" Blitzangel snapped back, her tone still the same.

Kup recovered from the sharp tone much quicker than some of the others would have. "Good job with the cons, kid. Ultra Magnus wants to have a talk with you. He said to meet him in his office and he will be there shortly."

Swoop heard. He had arrived to the fight at the very end and helped the femme drag the Decepticons back to base. He quickly jumped in. "Me Swoop go, too!"

Kup put an arm in front of the tall Dinobot's chest. "Not this time. This is a private meeting. Why don't you go tell your buddies we've got some new Decepticon prisoners?"

Easily swayed with a more interesting idea, Swoop eagerly ran off the other way.

Blitzangel was already out the door. Though she did not say anything to accept the order, she was headed right toward Optimus Prime's old office.

* * *

Ultra Magnus watched her every move from the surveillance room, tracking her journey from the holding cells to his office. Red Alert sat in his usual chair, a bit irritated with the larger girth looming over him as he watched the screen. Having someone leering over his shoulder always made him a bit ill at ease. Ultra Magnus continued to survey quietly as the Ark's cameras followed their newest guest down the halls. They watched as Blitzangel entered the open office and sat herself in front of the large desk.

Red Alert waited patiently for Ultra Magnus to leave him to his work and go back to his office. The large blue Autobot didn't move a muscle cable. His optics stayed trained on the screen, on the femme waiting patiently in her chair, hands in her lap. Red Alert tapped his finger on the arm rest in further agitation. He knew it wasn't his place just to blurt out but...

"Well? Are you going or not?"

Ultra Magnus didn't move. "Not yet. I'm gathering some input first."

"What could you possibly glean from watching her just sit there?" Red Alert demanded, trying hard to sound less perturbed than he actually was. He had a thing about personal space, and also about loitering in his surveillance room.

The base commander remained patient with him. Red Alert certainly had a talent for sniffing out trouble while it was still thinking about becoming trouble. But Ultra Magnus had a talent, too. He knew how to read an individual. He had a skill for pulling out more information than from just words alone, and he was practicing that skill now. It was very possible the safety and integrity of his entire base rested on it.

"You can learn a lot about a bot by merely observing them when they think no one is watching, Red Alert. Sometimes, those tell tale signs can be the most informative of all."

Intrigued by the idea of learning a new way to gather information, Red Alert sloughed off a bit of his malcontent with the situation and attempted to study Ultra Magnus as Ultra Magnus studied the screen. What kind of signs exactly was he looking for?

On the monitor, Blitzangel sat quietly for some time. She shifted every now and then, but made no sign she was anxious or uncomfortable with not being greeted by the Autobot who wanted to speak with her. More time passed. Blitzangel shifted again, moving to the edge of her seat. She gingerly reached out to the desk in front of her and ran her fingers over the smooth surface. Then her gaze wandered to the empty chair on the other side. She watched it for a long time.

"It's like she's... remembering, or trying to," Red Alert commented.

"Was she in there often?"

A shrug from Red Alert. "Not much that I can recall. But she lived on this base for several months. Every single room contains memories, I suppose."

The femme on screen then sat back again, hands in her lap once more. This time, she didn't move. For an hour, Ultra Magnus watched her and Blitzangel did not budge from her chair. When he finally grew tired of Red Alert's accusing optics drilling into the side of his head, Ultra Magnus left the room to return to his office.

When he arrived, Blitzangel was still there. Thought it was hard to see her at first. Her thin body was wholly swallowed by the large chair. Ultra Magnus said not a word as to why he was delayed as he shut the door behind him and seated himself at his desk.

Blitzangel watched him coolly, but expectant. "You made me wait over an hour," she said in a neutral tone. "You did it on purpose. You wanted to see what I would do. You're trying to figure me out."

"So you made yourself sit here for an hour because you didn't want me to figure you out?" Ultra Magnus shot back, unruffled from the accusation.

"I was told to be here, and I don't mind waiting. Waiting gives me something to do. Even if its an hour, even if it's five hours, it gives me a place I'm supposed to be. To have something to do or somewhere I need to be is a relief in this place. If you had taken longer, I still would have waited."

"I see." He took a moment to gather his thoughts. Knowing the truth about this femme's origin didn't help him any. She used to be human. Despite how she looked now, Ultra Magnus couldn't get past that barrier in his processor. He was still getting used to the life on Earth himself. He understood that they thought and felt just like he did, but they were so small. He had never dealt with lifeforms so small. And so primitive in their ways of thinking about the universe and all the life it contained. He could never put his finger on why, but he, Ultra Magnus, with all his political experience and prowess, felt he would never be fully comfortable in their presence. Nor did he ever think he would be able to understand them.

Even with this femme, though she looked just like his kind, he could tell. Just after a few sentences he could tell she was not Cybertronian. How could anyone else stand next to her and not realize she wasn't like them? How could any one assume this life ever came from the well of all sparks and Vector Sigma?

Ultra Magnus squared himself up in his chair and leaned his elbows on the desk."So let's talk about why you are here."

"It was an accident," Blitzangel said quickly. "I wasn't aiming for Earth. The warp jump was random. We were merely trying to get away."

"From seekers, I understand."

"Yes."

"Decepticons."

"No, I don't believe so."

"Neutrals then?"

Blitzangel gave half a shrug. "I'm not entirely sure. I know I had never seen them before. But they knew about the asteroid."

Ultra Magnus' face stiffened in confusion. "What asteroid?"

"The one Starscream was looking for."

"Starscream was there with you?"

"Yes, from before on the asteroid, but not when the seekers attacked."

The shoulders of Ultra Magnus wilted ever so slightly. "I think your memory files are still damaged."

Blitzangel pressed her lips together. "Just because you don't understand what I'm saying doesn't mean I don't know what I'm talking about."

Ultra Magnus gave her a similar, stubborn expression.

"What is it exactly that you want to know from me?" Blitzangel pressed.

"I want to know if your presence here has endangered this base," he replied.

Blitzangel gripped the arm rests. "This place was my home before it was YOUR base."

"Have you endangered this base?" Ultra Magnus repeated.

The purple femme vented some air. "If they attempted to follow the warp jump, they don't have a very good chance of finding exactly where we jumped to. I don't think they're going to bother trying. It would take them weeks, probably months to even get into this solar system. My impression was they were already headed for somewhere else. Our shuttle just happened to be in their path. But it's not something I can promise with absolute certainty."

Ultra Magnus steepled his fingers and pressed them against his lips in thought.

"But if you don't wish me to be here, then I will leave when Drift is repaired," the femme continued.

"You don't have a ship," Ultra Magnus insisted.

"I'll build one if I have to."

"Build it, will you? But this is your home planet."

"You're the one questioning why I'm here."

Ultra Magnus closed his mouth. He watched her for a moment and then tipped his head.

"And what is it that you want to question of me?"

He could see it in her face, there was something she wanted to know.

Blitzangel's voice suddenly became weaker as she asked. "Are you fixing a place for me in the brig alongside those Decepticons?"

Ultra Magnus had to admit, he wasn't prepared for that question. "Why would you ask that?"

"I used to be Decepticon."

"But you're not any more."

"I've killed Autobots."

Ultra Magnus leaned forward in his desk. "Did you want to kill them?"

Her hands were shaking. She clenched them in her lap to keep them still. "No," she whispered. "I had never killed anyone... before then."

"And do you want to kill anyone now?"

"No," Blitzangel said immediately. "But I know, as long as I live this life, one day I will have to kill again. To save myself or maybe save someone else. I don't look forward to that day."

Ultra Magnus leaned back in his chair, satisfied. "It has never been something I have looked forward to, either."

* * *

Blitzangel found the escape pod, now towed around the volcano just outside Wheeljack's workshop. The massive doors built into the side were open, but the inventor was nowhere around. Blitzangel stepped inside the pod and found two startled Autobots looking guiltily at her.

"Uh... we were just looking around," Wheeljack said. "You know, for damage and such." It was obvious she had caught them right in the middle of a casual conversation. Wheeljack was lounging in one chair while Trailbreaker was in another.

"It's fine," Blitzangel said as she came in and leaned against the consul.

"Uh... you remember Trailbreaker, right?" Wheeljack asked.

There was a sigh in her voice. "Yes, I remember Trailbreaker. I remember all of you. My memories weren't deleted, they were blocked. Then that stupid Catscratch virus messed everything up."

"So what do we call you, then?" Trailbreaker asked. "The word on the grapevine is that you like just 'Angel', right?"

Another sigh. "Drift calls me that. He thinks it makes him special. You don't have to." Something at the back of the tiny pod caught her attention and she wandered back there, only a few paces from where the Autobots were sitting.

"So... what then?" Trailbreaker asked, rotating his chair to watch her. "Blitzangel? You don't want us to call you Crys-"

"Blitzangel's fine for now," she cut him off. "I've been going by that for a long time now. Let's keep it that way until I get things figured out." She removed a panel in the back wall and began examining the wires she found there.

Wheeljack was watching her as well. "Soooo... how are you memory files now? Do they feel a bit more in order?"

Blitzangel's arm was already digging around in the depths of the pod's wiring as she mumbled some sort of affirmative to the question. Then she paused and glared at the inventor. "You bastard, did you reprogram me? After you promised not to?"

"I did no such thing," Wheeljack said. "I merely added an extra program to get your memory files in order. It had worked for Prowl quite well. I figured it would work for you, too. Right?"

She visibly softened. Perhaps from the mention of the second in command, Wheeljack wasn't sure. But that had been what he was aiming for.

"Yeah," she said quietly and then went back to work. "You're right. It's been easier to think lately- to get my head together- to put names to faces. To.. control myself."

"Good, that's what it's supposed to be doing and-" Wheeljack paused. "What are YOU doing?"

"Just nosing around," Blitzangel said, her head inside the open hole in the wall. "I'm planning on trying to get this thing back out to space and, hopefully, recover Drift's shuttle."

"You think you're going to need a space ship?" Trailbreaker questioned.

"Well, I can't go hopping stars in this little thing. It only has one good jump in it and then it's done." She pulled her head out. "I'll probably have to build another fuel tank to make sure we have enough just to get back to the ship."

"So you're planning on leaving again," Wheeljack said in a flat voice.

"As soon as Drift is repaired, he's going to want to keep moving. He gets restless if he stays in one place too long."

"So this Drift guy, he's a Decepticon, isn't he?" Trailbreaker cut in.

The pod suddenly went quiet.

"No, he isn't," Blitzangel said. "Why would you ask me that?"

"Because you've been seen with nothing but Decepticons since... you know, this." He motioned to her new form.

Blitzangel pressed her mouth in a thin line. "Drift isn't a Decepticon and he definitely doesn't work for Megatron. Don't worry, you big, strong guys are safe from him."

Trailbreaker got up and moved toward her, perhaps half from wounded pride and half from fear of offending her. Blitzangel's back was turned to him as he grabbed her shoulder. "That isn't exactly why I ask-"

The second he made contact, Blitzangel whipped around. Her blades didn't come out, but she did try to hit him with her fist. Luckily, Trailbreaker's reaction time was just as quick as hers. Her fist collided with his force field instead of him. The pod went quiet from the shock of the attack.

"Don't DO that!" Blitzangel barked after she had recovered. "You guys don't even know how much that-ugh!" She made a sound of frustration and stormed out of the pod.

Trailbreaker and Wheeljack looked at each other before the latter spoke. "Uh, let's not tell Ultra Magnus that happened."

"Agreed."

The two Autobots dared to venture out after her and found the femme inspecting the thrusters and fuel tank on the pod.

"Uh, sorry about that back there..." Trailbreaker said lamely.

"Look, it's fine," Blitzangel said quickly, her tone harsh. "Just don't... don't do it again."

Wheeljack noticed that she was hunching her shoulders at the thought of being touched again. It was the same for when she had first been rebuilt at the base and her tactile sensors had been on the fritz. Whatever the reason now, physical contact was not a pleasant experience for her.

Trailbreaker, despite his gruff interior, still looked a little regretful. Wheeljack, however, was used to being barked at and bounced right back.

"Well, I guess if we want to get this bucket back into space, we need to make a few plans."

He marched into his workshop and pulled up a large holographic screen on the table top so he could sketch up some blueprints. Blitzangel trailed after him, watching him work before moving in to do some sketches of her own.

At first, Trailbreaker thought it wasn't the best idea to help Blitzangel get back up to the stars. But, as he continued to watch, he had to admit, interaction with Wheeljack was good for her. Even more so when Bluestreak and Cliffjumper came in. Science babble turned into stories and silly conversations. The topic of discussion switched to what had been happening on Earth lately, both on the base and among the humans in general. This made Blitzangel relax and focus on the task at hand for a while.

Trailbreaker noticed Tracks lurking in the doorway for a moment. That Autobot had become good at lurking lately, ever since he had been left for dead by the Stunticons. That sparkling blue paint job that caught him so much attention in the past now did well to hide him in the shadows. He lingered only for a few moments and when Trailbreaker glanced his way a second time, the blue Autobot was gone.

"So I wanna know something," Cliffjumper suddenly announced after he had been listening to Blitzangel mumble over her plans for a while. "What's up with this?" He pointed to his own throat, where the vocalizer was kept. "Why'd the Cons bother getting you a new one? I heard those things can be expensive."

Blitzangel fingered her throat for a moment. "Megatron had it removed. I picked up the new one somewhere else."

"Removed?" Trailbreaker wondered. "Why would he do that?"

Blitzangel mulled the answer in her processor for a while. "I got a little... mouthy with Megatron."  
"Mouthy?" Cluffjumper demanded. "Like...?"

Her mouth twitched a bit. It might have almost been a smirk. "I told him to frag himself once. But, you know, in more human terms."

Trailbreaker and Cliffjumper made whooping noises. Bluestreak's optics grew a little bigger.

"Well he's such a rat bastard, he pisses me off," Blitzangel insisted, arms folded over her chest. A smile was tugging at the side of her mouth. She was enjoying this. It was the first time anyone had ever cheered for her on anything that she had done during all that time.

"You're lucky he didn't do more to you," Bluestreak said.

Blitzangel grinned as she spoke. "I know, right?" The smile instantly fell when she saw his sincere face. She let out a small sigh of air and put a hand lightly on his. Her voice was softer now. "I know."

"But now the Decepticons gave you all these cool gadgets," Cliffjumper broke in, motioning to one of her arms where the blade would slide out. "I bet they're regretting that now with how fast you took out those coneheads today. You're going to be every Decepticon's nightmare."

"IF she chooses to fight them," Bluestreak requested. "Which she doesn't have to if she doesn't want to."

"Of course she wants to!" Cliffjumper insisted. "They kidnapped her, messed with her design, and fragged up her processor. How can she not want to get them back for that?"

Wheeljack and Trailbreaker were starting to get worried that Cliffjumper might make Blitzangel angry with the way he was carrying on. However, all she looked was uncomfortable. In truth, there had been no time for thought about Decepticons or revenge on what they had done. It had all been about getting away and forgetting. Being with Drift made her forget. It made her cherish the ability to flee and avoid facing the truth. He taught her how to do that. He had been doing it for so long himself. Did she continue to want to be like him?

For a moment, Blitzangel allowed herself to think back, to think about the Decepticons. Not the army as a whole, but about the individuals she had been among during her time under their control. Each face flashed in her mind as she tried to find a corresponding emotion for them. Some of the emotions she left surprised her. But then one face, or lack thereof, appeared in her memory. A single blinking bulb, always staring down at her.

Blitzangel dropped the stylus she had in her hands.

"I have to go." There was fear clearly in her voice as she fled the room. Blitzangel didn't stop until she had run all the way to the med bay and rushed inside.

"Drift! Drift, I-" She froze in her steps when she saw that Drift was clearly off line with First Aid diligently beginning his attempts at removing the melted mass of metal from his back.

"I'm sorry," the soft spoken medic said. "He's going to be out for a while. But I'll give you a buzz when he's awake again."

Blitzangel didn't say anything. She backed out of the room and disappeared. Her quick retreat caused her to nearly collide with a large, green Autobot a few heads taller than she was.

"Woah there," he said, backing up to retreat from her space. "Where's the emergency?"

Blitzangel tipped her head at his unfamiliar form. At first, she thought maybe some of her memory files were still damaged. But then she came to the conclusions that she really had no idea who this Autobot was. There were a few on the base she hadn't been introduced to before. Her suspicions were even more confirmed when a white and pink femme stepped out from behind the larger mech. Blitzangel zeroed in on her instantly.

From before, when she had been surrounded by femmes, both Decepticon and Autobot, Blitzangel's memory was completely gone. Now, she had her memories and personality back. As well as her previous curiosity about female Cybertronians. Arcee stared back, unsure what to do. Blitzangel was observing maybe a bit too close for a bit too long. Springer made a noise in his vocalizer to get her attention.

"This is Arcee. I'm Springer."

Blitzangel was already backing up from them. "I'm... sorry about that. I didn't mean to run into anyone."

"Wait," Arcee called. "Weren't you trying to go this way?" She motioned to the hall behind her. "You can go if you need to."

"Any place you're going in particular?" Springer asked.

Blitzangel's shoulders shrugged. "I have nowhere to go."

That statement sounded more pathetic than she had meant it to be.

But Springer just smiled at her. "You should come with us then."

They were aiming for the break room. Blitzangel trailed after the pair, feeling like an orphan puppy hoping for a home. It was not pleasant to feel as useless and lost as she did right now. It was far worse than the ineptitude she felt in the Ark from before, when she was a naive weakling. Now she was strong, she was fast, she was smarter, and still just as purposeless on the Ark as before. It was a bit discouraging, but Blitzangel kept it to herself as she followed them into the break room.

Springer sat the two femmes down at an empty table and gathered energon cubes for all three of them.

"It seems to be pretty busy in here," Blitzangel commented as she looked around.

"Everyone likes to come in here and take it easy at the end of the day," Springer explained. "Magnus works us pretty hard."

"So you work day schedules, just like.. the humans do?"

"Most of us. There's a skeleton crew at night. But, if you're not on sentry duty, you're required to be out working on Autobot City. Since we're building it with the humans, we just work their work schedule and then everyone comes here to relax after the sun goes down."

Blitzangel reminded herself things were different here now. Not only because of the new base commander, but the lack of Decepticon activity. The remainder of the Decepticons on Earth were outnumbered and scattered. The Autobots did what they could to keep tabs on them, but they were hardly the main concern now. Nor were they the main focus of the Autobot resources.

As Springer explained, there was now the beginning of a city being built further out, but still in the general vicinity of the Ark. Unlike the original Autobot base, it was meant as a facility where humans and Autobots alike could cohabitate. Somewhat of a Cybertronian embassy on Earth. Something far more professional than a crashed shuttle with its back end sticking out of a mountain. And Ultra Magnus was all about being professional.

Blitzangel thought it was an interesting idea. She had seen it during her various flights around the area and, quite sure it had not been there before, wondered about it. But that was the extent of her interest in it. She wasn't too enthusiastic about moving in there herself, not when she and Drift still had a shuttle to repair. The stars seemed a better fit for her right now.

Nevertheless, the Earthbound Cybertronians and the human-turned-robot found themselves nice company in each other. Blitzangel asked Arcee how the Autobot femmes were doing before the pink femme could ask any questions to her. Arcee explained the remaining femmes were now in Iacon and everyone seemed to be adjusting well. The consensus around Iacon had been that it was about time the Autobots united again.

Blitzangel felt a stab of guilt when she thought about the Autobot femmes that were lost in the raid though. It was her existence that endangered the femme base. Not that she had walked in there herself, but she was partially to blame. A few of the missing Autobot femmes had been recovered with her on Xartin, but there were still many more that were never recovered. But she enjoyed hearing Arcee talk. There was something new and fresh about hearing a Cybertronian voice with a female tone.

Hound walked in and joined them at the table before either Arcee or Springer could bring the topic back toward Blitzangel. These days, it was practically everyone's duty to get what information they could from the femme and then report it back to Ultra Magnus. But now the green Autobot had distracted them.

"That's quite a big cube there." Hound nodded to the energon in Blitzangel's hand as he sat down. There was noise behind him as the Arielbots returned from where ever it was they had disappeared to. "You think you can finish it?"

Blitzangel looked at the cube in confusion. Had the portions she consumed increased with her new body? She hadn't noticed. "No, this is fine. I could probably drink this and then some."

"An itty bitty thing like you, gorgeous?" Slingshot suddenly butted in as he walked by. "Aren't femmes supposed to be watching their figures so they don't bloat or something?"

Arcee glared at him.

"I could totally drink twice this much," Blitzangel insisted.

Slingshot, always looking for something to occupy is time, grinned.

"Let's test that out."

It wasn't too much after when the break room began to fill with more spectators and in the middle were the Arielbots with several more Autobots all chanting "Go! Go! Go! Go!" The cheer slowly turned into. "Angel! Angel! Angel!" as the purple femme drained the cube and slammed it victoriously on the table.

"Wow, I'm quite impressed," Hound said. His optics were flickering. He had quite a bit himself.

"That's how fliers are, you see," Kup said. He had come in shortly after the drinking had started. And he certainly hadn't held back from the festivities. He placed a heavy hand on Hound's shoulder. "They're nothing but wings, thrusters and a gas tank. That's why they blow up so good when you nail one juuuust right."

"Frag you, old man!" a shout came from the Arielbots. Kup had no idea which one. They all looked alike to him.

"That's three!" Blitzangel crowed, and then swayed a little bit.

"You owe me 30 creds," Skydive muttered to Slingshot.

"Woo! Let's see number four!" Springer whooped.

"Springer!" Arcee barked.

"What? I'm just participating," the mech insisted.

But that got the ball rolling. "Number Four! Number four! Number four!" the crowd chanted.

Someone put another cube in Blitzangel's hands. She eyed it like the challenge it was and tipped it back while the Autobots cheered. She only got a few good swallows, however, before something inside her kicked back and she coughed up the energon in her mouth.

"Aww... done?" Air Raid wondered.

"Ugh, done," Blitzangel agreed as she put the messy cube on the table.

"Not bad for a femme though," Slingshot admitted. "Of course, I could still drink twice as much."

"Prove it!" his brothers (not surprisingly minus the careful Silverbolt) called to him.

Soon, there was more cheering and chanting as everyone gathered around the new focus of excitement and merely assumed the newly inebriated Blitzangel was going to stick around. When Hound paused during Slingshot's second cube to look around, however, the purple femme was nowhere in the room.

* * *

Tracks was not at the drinking party that night. Despite his lack of a polished paint job, he still had to tend to his responsibilities just like everyone else. He was returning from sentry duty at the Autobot City site and was intending to return to his quarters for some rest. However, his optics caught something dark moving in the shadows down the hall- a part of the hall that did not need to have any lights on because currently, no one was inhabiting those rooms.

There was a strange tapping sound also coming from the darkness. Tracks zeroed in on the movement as he stepped forward.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

The darkness was good at swallowing her up. But that green optic band, as unsteady as it was right now, still gave her away. She was standing at a door, Jazz's old door, and knocking her forehead against it as it trying to jar something loose.

"Hard... to think.." Blitzangel mumbled.

Tracks squinted at her. "Are you over energized?"

She tipped her head sideways to look at him, her arms hanging lifeless at her sides, her weight being held up by her head. "They bet I couldn't drink three cubes. But I did."

"I'm sure you're quite proud of yourself."

Blitzangel made a less than healthy moan. She went back to hitting her forehead against the door. It was the most pathetic thing Tracks could recall ever witnessing.

"That's not going to help you any, you know," he informed her.

She didn't stop.

"In fact, you're going to damage your paint doing that. Not to mention your processor."

She didn't seem to hear him. Tracks frowned and put his hand over the door to cushion her forehead. It didn't help too much, as his hand and the door were comprised of roughly the same material. Blitzangel hit her head against the back of his palm a few more times before resting it there, her expression melancholy.

"I wish... everything was like it had been," she said softly. "I wish it was like before."

Tracks crouched down to better meet her gaze. "Like before what?"

Blitzangel made another unhappy sound, both from the churning in her fuel tanks and also the unpleasant memories churning in her head. "Before... red optics and asteroids. Before... so many hands and deep tunnels and glowing orbs... giant planet gods and death pits and seekers on fire..."

She drifted off while Tracks just stared at her. Not a word of that made any sense to him.

"Primus, you are so drunk."

Blitzangel's optic band was flickering out. Her systems were wanting to go into recharge now.  
"Come on," Tracks said as he stood up.

He took her hand, but the femme resisted as he tried to guide her down the hall. After a few stumbles from Blitzangel dragging her feet, Tracks got fed up and decide just to carry her. Blitzangel made a halfhearted noise of disagreement that sounded more like a whine.

"Too bad, you're going to bed before you fall on your face," Tracks said as he carried her bridal style down the hall. "You can thank me later when you wake up in a cozy berth instead of face down in the hallway."

Blitzangel made a softer sound as she cuddled up to his marred chest. She could hear his spark settled safely below the armor. It gave off a deep rumble that was strong, yet calming. Blitzangel had forgotten about sparks, how much she enjoyed being near them. It lulled her into silence and she was almost in recharge by the time Tracks stepped into the untidy room that used to be occupied by the twins.

He set her down gently on the berth and Blitzangel looked up at him, her optic band flickering weakly. She scrunched her face at him as if squinting to get a better look. Her hand drifted up as if to gently stroke his cheek. Unfortunately, her drunken state impaired her motor skills and she ended up palming his face none too gracefully instead.

"This," she said in a slurred, slow voice. "Why is it like this when it's fixed so easily? Why show on the outside how it feels on the inside when it's so much... easier... to hide..."

Blitzangel's hand dropped to her side. She was out like a light.

Tracks gave a crooked smile as he pushed her further onto the berth to make sure she didn't fall off. "Honey, I don't hide. It's not my style," he told the sleeping body.

When he was satisfied she was secure, Tracks straightened and walked toward the door. He paused and looked back at the sleeping figure once more before turning off the lights and shutting the door behind him.

* * *

Bluestreak was putting on his best puppy dog face, though it certainly wasn't insincere. Still, the stoic expression on the screen was not buying it.

"Prowl, please come down. Just for a little while. It doesn't have to be very long. A day. Just one day?"

"Bluestreak, I have told you already," Prowl said neutrally. "The new space bridge isn't so everyone can planet hop whenever they feel like it. I have to set an example up here. How would it look if I used the bridge for my personal business just because I wanted to? Especially just for a day?"

Bluestreak's door panels perked up just a little "But you do want to... don't you?"

Prowl's expression changed so minutely, any regular Autobot would not have noticed. But Bluestreak had many, many years of practice catching his micro expressions.

"I cannot come, nor should I, Bluestreak. I am not going to force myself into her life just because you want me to."

"What if she wants you to?"

"So, she's asked about me?"

"Well... no..." Bluestreak's panels sagged again. "But that doesn't mean she doesn't want to see you."

Prowl didn't appear any more swayed than he had at the beginning of the conversation. "And what makes you think that?"

Bluestreak opened his mouth as he thought about what he had seen her doing lately. Working on rebuilding a shuttle to get back into space- that would not be a good example.

"She wants to see you Prowl, I know she does. She... she cares about you."

Again, just a brief hint of expression by Prowl. But Bluestreak still caught it.

"My answer isn't going to change. If there's nothing else, I need to go back to my duties. Prowl out."

He cut the connection and the screen went blue. Bluestreak's door panels slumped all the way down in Prowl's absence. The gray Autobot heaved a heavy sigh of air through his vents. Maybe he would have better luck if he tried in a day or two.

Unbeknownst to him, Tracks had been lurking in the doorway, listening to the conversation. Bluestreak was trying to get Prowl to Earth, was he? That promised to be very interesting if he ever did show up. It also might be interesting if Tracks played it a little dirty to see if perhaps HE could persuade Prowl to come to Earth before Bluestreak did. Yes, that would be an amusing challenge and Tracks certainly didn't mind playing dirty.


	13. Chapter 13: Nightmares

Rising Generations  
Chapter Thirteen: Nightmares

"I think it's time we were sharing a room, don't you? I mean, I don't really see the point of us having separate quarters if we're together now and the Autobots could sure use the space. So I was thinking you could move into my room, I'm sure Elita won't mind. I'll let her know about it right away. Won't it be so much fun Sunstreaker?"

Sunstreaker was giving his energon a morose look, his shoulders slumped fruitlessly. So. Hard. To. Think. Especially with all that yapping.

"Oh! Maybe soon we can get our own place on one of the upper levels!" Roulette squealed, completely oblivious to Sunstreaker's personal aversion to the current subject. "We could get ourselves a really big place. And Sideswipe is NOT moving in with us. Well, maybe he could if we had a lower level or something, but I'm not sharing all of my living space with him. You're okay with that, right?"

Sunstreaker glanced dismally at his brother. Sideswipe looked happy as a clam, energon in his hand and stupid smile on his face. Every once in a while his head would bob. The fragger was probably listening to music internally, tuning everything out. He was the smart one. On the other side of Roulette sat her older sister Bayonette. She was one of the femmes rescued from Xartin. Getting her big sister back made Roulette stop clinging with much tragedy to Sunstreaker for about half a day. Now she clung to him with happy daydreams of their perfect life together.

For her part, Bayonette just sat there sipping her own energon at the table they were sharing. Her long legs were crossed as she sat with straight posture. She, too, seemed to be effortlessly tuning out the mindless prattle. Sunstreaker envied her that talent to turn out such an annoying voice. It was slowly eating him alive. Why couldn't he have been attracted to the mature, confident femmes like Bayonette? Then he wouldn't have such problems as these.

"This is amazing!" Roulette continued without waiting for Sunstreaker's consent to the idea. "I'm going to tell all my friends we're getting our own place! They'll be so jealous. And it will be just you and me for ever and ever and nothing will ever come between us again."

Sunstreaker got a ping on his internal message system. He looked at it gratefully. Even orders from Prowl were a welcome change. The source of the message, however, was from the Autobot systems on Earth.

"It's from Tracks," he said out loud without thinking. "I wonder what he wants."  
Sideswipe was now tuned in to whatever was going on around him. "Maybe he finally fixed his paint job and he wants to show off."

"If he did, you owe me 100 creds," Sunstreaker grinned. "I told you he wouldn't last more than a year."

The message was, indeed, a picture file and Sunstreaker accessed the small computer screen on his forearm to view it. Sideswipe peered over his shoulder. At first, Sunstreaker wasn't sure what he was looking at.

"Hey, is that our old room?" he wondered.

"Sunstreaker?" Roulette called behind him. "Baby, what are you looking at?"

But Sunstreaker didn't even hear her when he realized what he was seeing. It was a picture of a purple femme recharging peacefully. In his room. On _his_ berth. The yellow Autobot jumped off the bench and took off toward the main control tower. Sideswipe was at his heels.

"Sunstreaker! Where are you going?" Roulette demanded after him.

Bayonette continued to sip her energon calmly.

* * *

Blitzangel tossed on the berth. Sleep was not kind to her. It was so much worse than being awake or being offline. When awake, she could keep her thoughts in order, her emotions controlled. When offline, she didn't think about or feel anything. Sleep was a cruel limbo between the two. Thoughts without control, emotions without an anchor. The horrible things she pretended not to see lurking in the dark corners came out in the open to torment her. No matter how far or fast she ran, they were always right behind her, grabbing her and pulling her back.

Dark, invisible forces caught her and held her down. She couldn't move as she felt hands tear inside her, ripping her insides out. There was a searing pain in her head as if were being shredded. She fought with all her might to get away, trying to make noise, to call for help, but her body wouldn't listen. No matter how much she tried, it was like being trapped inside a shell. Her body would never do what she wanted it to. It was a horrifying, helpless feeling.

Finally, Blitzangel managed to get noise through her throat as she came online. A startled cry rattled the silent room as her blades shot out to swipe at her unseen attackers. One sliced harmlessly through the air while the other embedded itself in the wall. Blitzangel lay there panting, her engines whining with exhaustion and heat. It took her a moment to remember where she was and that she was no longer in any danger.

After a few tugs, Blitzangel managed to yank her blade from the wall. However, that jarring motion upset her internal systems. Suddenly, she did not feel so good and her body heaved, disgorging the contents of her fuel tank. She regurgitated behind the head of the berth, feeling sick even as her tanks felt better. It wasn't the same muscles of throwing up as when she was human. The thought of being human and also throwing up did not help.

Once her tanks were empty, Blitzangel flopped back onto the berth, exhausted and woozy. The horror of her nightmares still hung heavy in the air so much that she hardly felt safe in the room alone. There was a message on her system from the med bay. Despite the complaint of her body, Blitzangel was happy for a reason to get up and be around others. She had to shake this off, she couldn't let it control her.

Walking around did make her feel better. After purging her tanks, they didn't seem upset any more. But apparently she still didn't look like she was feeling better when she entered the back of the medbay and sat down on a nearby stool in front of Drift's table. The white mech was propped up on his side by a few metal apparatuses to hold him in place.

"You don't seem to be looking too well," First Aid said as politely as he could.

"Do I?" she answered in a listless voice. "I drank a lot last night."

"You got over energized last night?" Drift chuckled. He stiffened as he did so. Most of the wires and muscle cables of his back were still exposed. He wasn't supposed to be moving much.

"Should you be... online?" Blitzangel worried. "Your surgery isn't finished."

"The Doc says I can't be online too long," Drift confirmed. "But he also said you came whipping in here last night looking pretty upset."

"Ooh," Blitzangel said in a soft voice, her gaze far away. Remembering her frantic fear last night, it only added to her nightmares-possibly caused them.

Drift studied her face. "Are you... okay?"

Whatever few measly strings were still holding her together snapped. The femme's lip quivered as she gave him a hopeless look. "I... I don't think I am," she whispered, her voice weak and wavering.

Drift glanced at First Aid. "Can you give us a minute, Doc?"

"Only a few. Then I need to take you offline again. We're already pushing it with you being awake now," First Aid said and he walked into the back office.

Once alone, Drift grabbed her hand. "Hey, come here," he said in a gentle voice.

Blitzangel looked close to crying, but she held it together as she stood and crouched over the head of the table so she was optic level with him.

"It's going to be okay, alright?" the white mech told her. "I'll get fixed up and we'll get out of here. We'll get the shuttle back somehow. In fact, I'm sure you've been planning that already."

"I've kind of been thinking about it," Blitzangel admitted as she sniffed.

"See? That's my girl. We're going to be okay, you and me. Just hold out for a little while longer. Okay?"

Blitzangel nodded. She vented some air, trying to sturdy herself. "Okay." She forced more strength into her voice.

He held her hand tighter. "And if any Autobots are giving you trouble. You just tell me when I get out of here and I'll really tear them up until-"

"I need to take you offline now," First Aid said in a flat voice. He was standing much closer than either of the other bots noticed him to be.

They both tried to look at him innocently.

"Do what you gotta do, Doc," Drift said.

Only a few seconds and the medic had taken Drift back offline.

"I'm sorry the meeting was so short." First Aid said as he checked Drift's vitals. "But I hope it helped. You appeared quite distraught last time I saw you."

Blitzangel stood up, her hand lingering on Drift's. She had to take a moment to gather herself, to put on that fake smile.

"Yes, it helped. Thank you. Though would I be wrong in saying it wasn't exactly healthy to leave him online in that condition? If he had moved too much..."

"You are quite correct," the medic instantly agreed. "But to tell the truth, I've had quite a hard time keeping him offline."

Blitzangel rifled through her information files. She had never heard of such a problem. "What do you mean?"

"I mean every time I take him offline for a procedure, he comes to after a while. It's as if something keeps waking him up."

"Something like...?"

First Aid shrugged. "Maybe it has something to do with the planet. Maybe Earth's gravity combined with magnetic pull or air pressure. I'm not quite sure. I've never had this problem before. I'm going to have to disconnect his systems from the power supply to make sure he doesn't wake up in the middle of the surgery again."

She patted him on the shoulder. "You're doing a good job. I trust you'll take care of him."  
"I'm just worried what he's going to do when he's finally able to move around," the medic admitted.

Blitzangel couldn't help but smile just a little more sincere at the thought of what the white mech would get into when he could finally move around. "I'll do my best to make sure he stays out of trouble."

* * *

The door to the small meeting room was kicked open. All Autobots within were already grabbing their weapons by the time Sunstreaker stormed inside.

"Optimus! I'm going back to Earth! Send the order to the space bridge! I'm going right now!" he bellowed

"Yeah, me, too," Sideswipe piped up behind him.

It was a small meeting. Just Optimus Prime, Nightbeat and a few of his team members. Nightbeat's team was the underground intelligence. It wasn't exactly a meeting who's content everyone was privy to. Optimus Prime was not pleased with the interruption. Especially not with the reason for the disturbance.

"Sunstreaker, we will have to discuss this later. I am in the middle of something important."

"But THIS is important, too!" Sunstreaker barked. "No one ever tells me a fragging thing! And then suddenly I get correspondence from Earth and-"

Optimus Prime stood up and palmed the yellow Autobot's face in his mighty grip. Quite impressively, Optimus lifted Sunstreaker off the ground by his head to get his attention.

"I _said_ I am in the middle of a meeting. We will discuss this later," the Prime insisted.

Having his feet off the ground cooled Sunstreaker's heels a bit. "Yeah boss. I'll wait 'til you're done."

"What about you?" Optimus looked to Sideswipe.

The red Autobot raised his hands in surrender. "Waiting's good. I can wait."

"Good, now get out."

* * *

Blitzangel didn't know what was going anymore. Something else seemed to have broken loose within her between that night she passed out and now. Too much energon had weakened her defenses. Another dam that had been holding back so much was broken and she didn't know how to control the flood. The one thing she knew for sure was that she didn't want the Autobots to know. She didn't want any of them to see her break down. It was the survival skills hardwired into her. Don't let anyone see you be weak.

And she did feel weak. She felt like she was falling apart and there was no safe place on the entire Ark where she could go to privately pick up the pieces. When she was scared, that old memory kept coming back. It was the one that stuck with her ever since her aggression program was removed.

That warm summer day, that time, that place felt safe. The closest thing she could get to that was this door -the same door she had wandered to the night before in her drunken stupor. Jazz's old quarters.

She stumbled inside, feeling immediately safer when the door closed behind her. It was funny, she had never been in this room before in her life. She had hardly been in any Autobot's quarters. Only the twins' a couple of times. Maybe that was why she chose it to be her own quarters, she didn't know any more. But all the others, she never went in to. It was still one of those questionable things that never quite sorted itself out on the Ark. It never seemed proper to be in one of their rooms alone, nor was there much opportunity. Everyone spent most of their time outside their quarters working, socializing, being together, it was hardly something that was thought about.

Now Blitzangel could think of little else. She threw herself on the floor and curled up, wrapping her arms around herself. This room belonged to Jazz for years, it felt like him. His essence still radiated through the room as if he had just barely walked out. But he was not here. That voice that always knew what to say to her when she didn't know which way to turn wasn't here.

Her body began to shake as waves of emotion crashed over her without mercy. It was as if the entire accumulation of all the fear and panic and sadness and disappointment that she should have felt over the past year waited until now to make itself known. All Blitzangel could do was curl up tightly, shut off her optic band and ride it out. Maybe this horrible feeling had an end if she just hung on long enough.

The door slid open and a frame much larger than the room's original owner stepped in. It was Ultra Magnus with suspicion written all over his face. He had found it so very strange for Blitzangel to sneak into a room she had no previous interest in before. Perhaps he wouldn't have been so (skeptical of her actions if the room hadn't previously been owned by a second in command. It wasn't as if the femme would find any sensitive information in the empty quarters, but Ultra Magnus still had to check.

Even then, he half expected to catch her in the middle of rummaging around. All he found was the tiny femme curled up on the floor. Immediately, his recollection went back to the first time he had seen her. How lightning fast she was, how dangerous she had been. Was this really the same femme now twitching at his feet, her body covered with the condensation of an over-stressed system?

She switched on her optic band when he stood over her. "What do you want?" she asked in a shaky voice.

"You need to see a medic," Ultra Magnus said in a neutral tone.

"Go away, I'm fine!" The protest came out like a sob. "I can't get two seconds of privacy from you damn Autobots! Why do you have to watch me when I'm like this?"

Ultra Magnus huffed out some air, one hand on his hip. "Why won't you let anyone help you? Don't you trust the Autobots any more?"

Blitzangel switched off her optic band. It took all her concentration to keep her voice as steady as it was. "Autobots are the reason I ended up like this."

Ultra Magnus frowned. "The Decepticons are there reason you were taken away from here and the reason you have that body. But it's your own fault you've ended up like this. And you keep fighting anyone who tries to get close to you without reason. Why?"

Her tanks lurched. If there was anything left in them, Blitzangel probably would have thrown up again. Why wouldn't he just leave her with her misery? Why wouldn't that stupid Autobot just go away?

"Because fighting is all I know how to do, okay?" she screamed in a desperate voice. "I don't know what else to do!" Her body heaved with sobs. "I don't know what to do any more!"

The dam was broken without repair now. Blitzangel couldn't stop the emotions racing through her, nor could she prevent herself from having her emotional break down in front of the base commander. As humiliating as it was, she no longer had the will to prevent her body from heaving as sounds of pain and fear ripped through her vocalizer. As much as she tried to will this stranger to go away so he wouldn't see her at her most pathetic, he stayed.

He watched her as she writhed on the floor. Then Ultra Magnus sat himself next to her and gathered the smaller, shaking body against him. Despite her aversion to being touched, she clung to him and sobbed onto his chest. Despite the thick armor of the base commander, Blitzangel could feel the power of his spark. It gave off a deep rumble, like an engine. It reverberated in her body and slowly began to calm her hysteria.

Ultra Magnus silently held the femme until all her sobs and cries and shaking had died down. Then he held her for longer than that. Blitzangel's optic band then went offline and she feel asleep. Finally, Ultra Magnus moved to stand, taking the femme with him. He gently lay the body on the berth next to him.

"Perceptor," Ultra Magnus said through his radio as he watched over the femme. "I need either you or Wheeljack to come down to Jazz's old quarters. Something just happened and I need someone to explain it to me."

* * *

The surveillance room was quiet as usual. Prowl sat at the controls as he monitored the city as well as the main control tower. The silence was soon interrupted by a tall, yellow Autobot as he paraded into the room.

"Prowl! I have been looking for you all day!" Sunstreaker barked as he stalked up to him.

"I have been out in the field, supervising outposts," Prowl responded calmly, not even moving his optics from his instruments to look at Sunstreaker. "Certainly you could have found another commanding officer to bring your grievances to."

Sunstreaker slapped his palm on the consul. "You are my grievance," he said close to the SIC's face.

Prowl finally turned to look at him, one optic ridge arched higher than the other in curiosity. "What exactly do you want?"

"You're going to Earth with me. Right now."

Prowl's optics widened and then narrowed. "I most certainly am not. What makes you think I will agree to such a thing?"

"As if you didn't know already who is down there," Sunstreaker challenged. "She's where we should have sent her in the first place. Primus forbid all of you geniuses would figure out to send her home. Looks like she got there just fine herself. Thanks for letting the rest of us know about it, by the way."

"It wasn't meant to be kept a secret for long," Prowl insisted, unchastised. "We were waiting for a full report of her current condition before disclosing that information."

Sunstreaker leaned in further, his voice low. "Go get the report yourself."

Prowl's frown almost turned into a growl. "I am not going to Earth. If you've managed to get permission then you can go without me."

Sunstreaker gave one of those maddening grins that even Prowl had a hard time looking out without his energon boiling. "You see, that's the thing, Prowlie-Boy, I can't go without you. That's the condition I was given. So you're going."

"What?" Prowl squeaked out before he could even stop himself. "Why on Cybertron would I need to-"

"Prowl." A calm, deep voice cut him off from the back of the room. Optimus Prime sat in his command chair, quietly going over data pads. It was he who had given the condition of the twins' return to Earth. "Go back to Earth and clean up your mess."

Prowl stared at him, feeling betrayed somehow. But he flashed back to that evening outside the volcano. Prowl had told Opimus himself that he took full responsibility for the existence of this being and he would always take care of her.

"Yay! Back to Earth for us!" Sideswipe crowed. The red Autobot seemed to appear out of nowhere, as he often did.

Prowl didn't know what to say.

* * *

There was also another Autobot who was a bit blindsided at the entire visit to Earth.

"Why am I in this group again?" Jazz wondered as he stood, dumbfounded, in front of the dormant space bridge.

"Because Ultra Magnus asked for you by name," Optimus Prime informed him.

"Why?" Jazz shot back.

"I don't know, to be honest."

"Isn't this what you wanted?" Prowl asked quietly, looking no more satisfied than Jazz did. "It was you who insisted we go after her when she left Cybertron. And yet now you don't want to go? Is it because now you are no longer taking the lead?"

Jazz frowned at the familiar conversation. "Shut up, Prowl."

"Someone else is 'scheming on your schtick'?"

"Shut up, Prowl!"

Behind them, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were grinning. It was funny when the two SICs bickered. Though they couldn't tell for sure, Prowl might have had a minute smile at his face as well.

"Now listen, all of you," Optimus Prime announced, his tone firm. "Going down to Earth doesn't mean you can go do whatever you want. You will be under Ultra Magnus' command while on that planet and you WILL do everything he says. You will obey him as if his words were mine, because they are. Anyone who doesn't listen will be shipped back to Cybertron immediately to answer to me and I will promise you right now it will not be pretty. Do you all understand?"

Several heads nodded seriously. Sideswipe saluted.

"Alright." Optimus pulled down the heavy lever and the space bridge was activated. "Behave yourselves."

Jazz looked at the glowing gate, then at Prowl. "I guess we're doing this, huh?"

"Seems so," the black and white responded.

A shrill, feminine voice squeaked through on his radio. "Sunstreaker? Where are you? Sunstreaker, answer me!"

The yellow Autobot panicked when Roulette's voice came over his radio. "Get in! Get in!" The two seconds protested as Sunstreaker pushed them through the bridge, Sideswipe following behind.

When the four had gone all the way through, Optimus closed it and watched the dormant bridge for a while.

"It will be fine, Optimus. Don't worry about them," a female voice said behind him.

He turned to see Elita One smiling at him.

"You're right, of course," he conceded.

His femme walked up to him, a smirk on her lips. "I'm more concerned about you. With your seconds gone, I hope you don't think you can get away with goofing off with Hot Rod and Bumblebee all day." She wagged her finger at him for emphasis.

Optimus looked wounded. "Of course I wouldn't."

"Hey Optimus!" Hot Rod called as he sauntered into the area. "Now that the sticks in the mud are gone, let's go goof around!"

The two leaders glared at him.

"What?"

"Bad timing, Hot Rod," Optimus told him. "Bad timing."

* * *

The conjoining doorway of the Earth's space bridge was stationed within the construction site of Autobot City. The four Autobots stepped out, greeted by the sight of skeletal buildings. They were also met by the impressive form of Ultra Magnus himself.

"Welcome to Autobot City," he said formally. "I mean this in the most sincerest way possible when I say I hope you won't be staying long."

"As do I," Prowl agreed.

"Before I take you back to the Ark, you need to be debriefed on certain protocol we have in place regarding the femme. I will let your supervisor relay to you all the information you need to know." Ultra Magnus motioned to a much smaller Autobot at his side. Bluestreak.

"Hey guys," he waved.

"What?" Sunstreaker squawked. "There's no way in the five hells of The Unmaker I'm going to report to Bluestreak as my supervisor!"

"I can put you back on Cybertron right now if you have a problem with how I run things," Ultra Magnus warned. "It's your choice."

Despite all the posturing, Sunstreaker submitted to the terms. Even with his protests, his pride wasn't wounded nearly as greatly as Prowl and Jazz, who took it all in silence. Their rank on Earth had suddenly dropped dramatically. Ultra Magnus certainly didn't need them as seconds here. Now they were back to the rank of regular soldier.

The base commander stayed in the background, listening as Bluestreak filled in the four Autobots on the current condition of how things were currently run on Earth.

"Okay guys," Bluestreak announced with as much authority as he could muster, which really wasn't very much at all. "Um, so... I know you guys probably want to run right over there and talk to her, but you can't. "

Sunstreaker was already looking like he was going to protest again, but Prowl held up a hand to let Bluestreak finish.

"One of the main rules is that you can't go seek her out directly," Bluestreak said. "She has to come to you. And uh, you may not want to sneak up on her, either. For safety reasons. She kind of likes to have her space. And all of you will have normal duty schedules while you're here." He had some data pads in his hand which he handed to each one of them.

"How are we gonna get anything done with Crys if we're helping Ultra Magnus build his city all day?" Sideswipe said. He had mostly meant it for his brother, but everyone still heard.

"Oh, that's another thing," Bluestreak recalled. "She doesn't like it when you call her Crystal any more. She goes by Angel now. If you call her by her human name, it kind of upsets her."

Sunstreaker was grumbling again, but doing it quietly. Prowl ignored him.

"How is she, Bluestreak?" he asked in a soft voice.

Bluestreak got that smile on his face, that one he used when the news he had wasn't entirely good. "She had some kind of emotional break down the other day. Perceptor says most of her emotions had been blocked all this time since her first reprogramming. Then they suddenly just hit her all at once."

"But she's okay, right?" Jazz asked.

Bluestreak looked helpless for an answer. "It's over now. But she just... looks so sad all the time. She doesn't really talk very much any more. She's slowly getting it all out, but she has to take it at her own pace. We can't interfere with that. We can only be around if she needs us. We can't force ourselves in her space if she doesn't want us to, okay?"

Sunstreaker stepped forward and grabbed Bluestreak's arm. He spoke to him in lower, more secretive tone. "Look, Blue, that's fine. We'll do all that. Just... what did the Decepticons do to her?"

The gray Autobot's sad smile turned even sadder and he shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."

* * *

Prowl, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe were put directly to work on Autobot City with most of the other Autobots currently stationed at the base. It gave them time to mingle with old comrades and get a better view of the situation before running off to pester the reason they came. Jazz was sure that was exactly Ultra Magnus' plan. What the base commander wanted with him, however, was something he was still guessing at.

Jazz found himself in Ultra Magnus' office instead of out working with the other Autobots. That suited him just fine. He had questions that needed answers himself.

"You want to know why I asked you down here specifically," Ultra Magnus guessed before Jazz could even speak.

"Yeah, I do," Jazz said, folding his arms. "I would have thought you had enough coming to Earth already without me. Not that I don't appreciate getting a personal invite to the party."

"Having any of you come down here was not my idea, but since there were Autobots already coming, I thought I would at least make the request."

"And that reason being...?"

Ultra Magnus looked at him frankly. "She misses you. And she needs you, even if she won't say it out loud."

Jazz's crossed arms dropped in surprise.

"She uses your old quarters as sort of a safety room," the commander continued. "Now I don't know all the dynamics of her past relationships, but I felt bringing you down here would be the best for her. That is why you were requested."

Jazz was quiet for a moment, trying to figure out his next move. "Soooo..."

"She's outside around the back if you want to see her. Or you can go report to Autobot City. It's up to you." Ultra Magnus returned his attention to his reports. "You are dismissed."

Jazz wandered outside the Ark, feeling a bit bewildered. Autobot City sparkled in the distance ahead of him. Or he could round the volcano and see what was waiting on the the other side. He vented some air. Jazz was not the kind of bot to ever back down from anything. Might as well give it his best shot while he was still able to engage her by himself on his own terms.

He began to walk around the volcano. The unfamiliar silhouette of a purple femme soon came into view. She was out several yards and, surprisingly, not alone. The long neck of a robot Brontosaurus towered above her while she threw a large stick into the wild grass. Snarl, in Stegosaurus form, wasn't exactly the fastest with his stubby legs, but didn't seem to mind going after it. They all certainly made for a strange picture to watch.

Blitzangel didn't seem to notice Jazz's approach until he he stepped much closer. She was about to throw her stick again when she stiffed as if sensing someone was behind her. She turned and momentary surprise crossed her features before settling back into a neutral expression.

"Uh, hey," Jazz said with a friendly smile. "Um, funny meeting you here?"

"You're supposed to be on Cybertron," Blitzangel said without emotion.

He shrugged. "Yeah, but they shipped me out here for a couple of days. I thought maybe... you and I could talk for a while."

Snarl rumbled impatiently and Blitzangel threw the stick for him. The Dinobot lumbered off after it.

"Talk about what?" Blitzangel asked.

"You know, anything you want. Anything you maybe wanna get off your chest."

Blitzangel wasn't looking at him. "Nope, I'm good."

"You sure?"

"You Jazz can talk to me, Sludge," the Dinobot offered.

"Yeah Jazz, go talk to Sludge," the femme chimed in with a more caustic tone.

Jazz pressed his mouth in a thin line. "You know I came back here for you, right? If you don't want to talk right now, that's fine. I just want you to know that I'm here when you need me."

Blitzangel smiled. A mirthless, incredulous smile as if someone just played a cruel joke on her. "Here when I need you, Jazz? Really? What about six months ago when I was in a holding cell in Iacon? Where you there when I needed you?"

"You wanted that cell," Jazz reminded.

"Yeah because it was either that or more scientists digging around my insides," she instantly shot back. "I didn't see your damn face the entire time. Where were you, huh?"

"You were put in quarantine. We weren't supposed to-"

"What about before that, huh?" she cut him off. "What about all those months I waited for someone to come find me at the Nemesis?"

"We looked for you babe, but we couldn't ever-"

"You didn't look hard enough!" she cut him off, her voice an octave higher with pain and anger. "I didn't see a single damn Autobot around that base the entire time Megatron had me scrub that thing from top to bottom! And what about fucking yesterday, Jazz? Where were you then, if you're there when I need you? When I thought I was going to die from the inside out in front of a total stranger and I wished so badly that you were-" A sob interrupted her words and she couldn't go on.

"Hey, you're right," Jazz said quietly. He walked toward her with his arms out. "C'mere. I'm sorry."

Blitzanel's pained expression turned to anger and she backed away. "Don't!" she barked. "Get away from me."

With that, she transformed into jet mode and took off for the sky. Jazz had to shield his face from the heat of the thrusters. He watched helplessly as the craft screamed higher and then disappeared into the distance.  
Then Jazz felt a stick drop on his feet. Snarl looked at him expectantly and growled. Jazz sighed.

* * *

"Well look who finally came to help out," Sunstreaker grouched as Jazz appeared in Autobot City. "What have you been doing, Jazz? You and Magnus have a tea party while the rest of us work our paint jobs off?"

Jazz didn't say a word. He was clearly in a dark mood. He grabbed a rivet gun a began attaching metal sheets to the wall. The twins looked at each other. It certainly wasn't like Jazz not to say anything when he was being snarked at.

Prowl walked up to him, his tone quiet enough for only his friend to hear. "Jazz, what happened?"

Jazz kept working. "Ultra Magnus wanted me to go talk to Crys. He thought it would be good for her."

"And?" Prowl pressed.

"She yelled at me," Jazz said between rivets. "Named all the times I let her down. Told me to get away from her." He paused. "I made her cry."

Prowl thought about it quietly for a moment. "Do you want to go back to Cyberton?"

Jazz rounded on him, looking irritated. "No Prowl, I don't want to go back to Cybertron. I'm not done here."

Now Prowl looked irritated. "Oh? You want her to yell at you some more? Did you not get enough?"

"Well don't we deserve it if she does?"

Prowl did not look like he disagreed with that statement. "But what good would we be doing if she doesn't want to have anything to do with either of us? She is in a safe place, she is whole and well and she is free to do whatever she wants. What else can we do for her?"

"She's not well, Prowl," Jazz insisted. "If you had seen her face... It hurt me in my spark to see her that way. I'm not just going to leave because she didn't want to talk to me. And... I know it's selfish, but I gotta hold her just once. All this time, it's not been enough to see her walking around, talking- I just can't help it. I have to feel for myself that she's whole with my own hands. And then, when I see her smile, even if she leaves, then I'll be satisfied Prowl. And if you don't feel the same way, I'm going to punch you in the mouth right now."

Prowl, not expecting that last threat, put up his hands in defense. "Understood, we're not leaving. We'll see this thing through to the end. You know I always see things through to the end."

Jazz clapped him on the shoulder, feeling a bit better. "Yeah Prowl, I know."

* * *

Jazz still had trouble settling down that night. After a long day of work, he volunteered for time in the main control room instead of resting. To him, it was better than not having anything to do. He wasn't like the twins who could just lollygag around, biding their time when he had something on his mind. He also wasn't like Prowl who was quite talented in finding things to keep himself occupied when he had a lot on his processor. Jazz needed to have a job, and work he did for most of the night. He ended up being glad for it, the waiting paid off.

"Hey," he called as something dark slunk past the doorway around 2 AM Earth time. "Where you going?"

The figure moved back into view, her green optic band illuminating her firm mouth. She didn't answer the question.

"You turning in?" Jazz asked, ignoring her silence.

Blitzangel didn't respond. The other Autobots in the room were watching now.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Jazz pressed. "Where's my good night?"

She vented some air. "Good night, Jazz."

Jazz still looked expectant as he tapped his cheek with a finger. Blitzangel didn't move for a few seconds. Then she stepped forward and kissed Jazz on the indicated cheek.

"And?" he insisted.

Blitzangel pressed her mouth together. "I love you," she said begrudgingly.

"Damn right you do and don't you forget it." They frowned at each other for a moment before Jazz added. "I love you, too."

Blitzangel turned and skulked out of the room.

Jazz turned to see both Springer and Ultra Magnus staring at him in wonderment. Red Alert was not as bewildered and had already gone back to work.

"What?" Jazz asked.

But then the surprise grew urgent on their faces. Like something was coming through the door, something fast. Jazz heard the footsteps running toward him before he saw what it was. Before he could turn around, arms grabbed him from behind. They were small arms, painted purple, and they held him tightly while a face pressed against his back.

They lingered for only a few moments, clutching him tightly. Then they were gone, just as fast as they had come. But Jazz was fast, too. He spun and caught a fleeing hand, yanking the body back. Blitzangel was pulled toward him and Jazz caught her in his arms. The small body trembled at the contact, but Jazz refused to let her go.

"It's okay, baby. I've got you," he soothed in a low tone. "Everything's going to be alright." He stroked her helm and clutched her shoulders tight. The trembling subsided and Blitzangel returned the embrace, holding him fiercely and burying her face in his shoulder.

"Jazz," Ultra Magnus said from his command chair. "I believe you've worked enough for today. You're excused."

Jazz shot him a smile of thanks and looked down at the femme in his arms. "You want to come with me?"

Blitzangel nodded into his shoulder.

"Alright, we'll go find some place for you to rest, how about that?"

She nodded again and Jazz led the suddenly very meek and placid femme out of the room.

Ultra Magnus smiled quietly to himself as they left. Did he know how to read bots or what?

* * *

The transmission Prowl received from Jazz was interesting: _You can see what I have in my room if you come in quietly._

He had an inkling to as to what that message meant, but Prowl tried not to jump to conclusions or get his hopes up. The door to Jazz's quarters was unlocked and Prowl quietly pinged Jazz's com link that he was there before stepping inside.

Jazz was found sitting on his cot, legs dangling off the side, back against the wall. Blitzangel was propped up against his side, deep in slumber, her legs stretched long-ways over the cot. She rested her cheek against his shoulder, hugging his arm tightly to her chest as if afraid he would leave while she slept.

Prowl froze. His optics stayed on the femme for several minutes, taking in her form, searching for any damage. Then finally, his gaze wandered up to Jazz.

"You've had a very eventful day," Prowl said in a quiet voice. He gingerly sat himself on the very far corner of the cot, afraid to disturb the sleeping femme. Perhaps afraid to get too close.

"Yeah, it's been a crazy day," Jazz whispered back. "But this made it all worth it." He touched the femme's arm lightly.

"How long has she been asleep?"

"A few hours now."

"Did she say anything to you?"

"Not too much, Prowl. I got her in here and she just crashed. Poor thing's exhausted." Jazz brushed the knuckle of a finger against her cheek. "She's been like a bird without a place to land. We thought her being here was the best thing for her. The Ark's still here, this is her planet, but it's not her home any more. Everything's changed too much."

Prowl seemed a bit jealous Jazz was touching her and he was not. He hovered a white hand over the femme's foot. He just wanted to touch her, like Jazz said, to confirm with his own senses she was real and she was okay. But in this end, he lost his nerve and he dropped his hand uselessly at his side.

"That's why we didn't send her back the first time," Jazz continued. "Deep down, we knew this. Her home isn't this slagged up ship sticking out of a mountain, it's with us. Wherever we go, she goes with us. That's where she belongs."

"I agree," Prowl nodded. "As long as she agrees. But if she wants to leave and find her own home elsewhere, she can."

Jazz frowned at him. "You're so slagging noble, it makes me sick sometimes."

At this point, Blitzangel stirred from her slumber. There was always a momentary sense of panic when she came to. Too often would she come into consciousness strapped to a table with a stranger or enemy hovering over her. If not that, then the nightmares that haunted her when she slept would take hold: that horrible sensation of not being able to move no matter what was being done to her.

But this time, the fear could not reach her. While she slumbered, Blitzangel felt safe, protected. All due to a familiar humming at her back: Jazz's spark. His signature had a kind of rhythm to it. It had lulled her tired mind and body to sleep instantly when she had pressed against it. That comforting sensation had been there the entire time while she slept, calming her even now with its closeness as she awoke.

Jazz felt her shift and offered a friendly smile as her optic band flickered on. He brushed her forehead with his hand. "Hey babe, how ya feeling?"

"I'm okay, I guess," she said in a soft voice. Then she noticed the white Autobot sitting in front of her and she stiffened.

"Hello," Prowl said softly. "I'm happy to see-"

"You're a jerk!" she cut him off. The room went quiet. "I waited for you to come find me and you never did!"

"I...I looked for you," Prowl floundered, not expecting such an accusation so fast. "We all looked. I spent so much time searching and planning-"

"Well you suck at it!" Blitzangel struggled to sit up, looking like she wanted to attack him, but Jazz held her back. "I've never felt like such an idiot before until I decided to believe in you! I can't believe I listened to you! You promised me you would always be there for me and you made me look like a fool every damn day you didn't show up!"

She elbowed Jazz, a but frustrated he was holding her down. "At least Jazz never made me such a stupid promise. But like a total moron, I believed you. I thought that if anyone could keep it, it would be you. But you didn't! You lied to me!"

Being unable to do anything else, Blitzangel kicked Prowl's thigh.

"Hey!" Jazz barked.

"You're a big, fat liar!"

She kicked him some more. Prowl took the abuse silently. He looked hurt, but at the same time, willing to receive what she would dish out. As if she could have driven a blade through his spark and he would have been happy to receive such a just punishment.

"You let me down, Prowl!"

"I failed you," he said silently. "I understand, and I'm sorry."

"No you don't understand!" Blitzangel shoved at Jazz harder until he finally let her go. She sat up, her anger blazing into him like fire. "I don't rely on anyone, Prowl! I never have. I take care of myself! And then suddenly you come in with your empty promises and you took that away from me. How am I supposed to know how strong I have to be when I keep waiting for someone that never comes?" Her shoulders heaved as the pain took over her voice. "By the time you finally came, I didn't know how to hope any more. I didn't know how to be ME any more! And now I'm tried, Prowl. I'm so tired. I'm tired of being scared and angry all the time. And I don't know who to blame and I don't know how to make it better."

She crumpled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her body. "I hate myself for being this helpless. I hate that I don't know what to do!"

Prowl, being Prowl, had no idea what to do for the weeping femme in front of him. He never did know what to do when they cried, when they showed any emotion. But when the challenge presented itself, Prowl forgot all else. For the moment, he even forgot all the previous broken promises as he put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll figure it out," he told her in a serious voice. "I'll help you any way I can. And if you need anything, just tell me. I'll make it happen." Now both hands were on her shoulders and he stared at her with those intelligent, blue optics. "I promise, I'll do better this time. As long as you stay with me, I'll do better."

Blitzangel felt hope rise in her chest again. A part of her hated him for that. Even if he let her down, she was so eager to trust him again when he offered. She wanted him to succeed in his oath just as much as he did. She opened her mouth to answer.

Blitzangel stiffened with alarm when she received a ping from First Aid in the med bay. It was urgent.

"I have go to."

Both seconds grabbed her at once when she tried to leave. Prowl kept a hold of her shoulders, Jazz had her wrist.

"Woah, where you off to? We're in the middle of something here," Jazz said.

Blitzangel squirmed out of their grip. "I got a call from the med bay. It's important."

Neither Autobot could argue with that. Anything from the medbay always took priority. They regretably let her go and Blitzangel was allowed to slip out the door and race down the hall toward the infirmary.

She arrived to the med bay to see First Aid trying to reason with a very distraught Drift who was flat on his back. The white mech had actually been strapped down to the table this time, which alarmed Blitzangel the most.

"Let me out of here!" Drift demanded. "I have to find her!"

"You can't move! Your back isn't finished yet!" First Aid tried. "If you would just-Look! Look! She's right over there!"

Drift glanced where First Aid was pointing and saw Blitzangel approach.

"See?" the medic said. "I told you, she's fine."

"Why wouldn't I be fine?" Blitzangel wondered.

"Angel!" Drift called, still struggling. "Something bad's going to happen! He's here! I saw him!"  
"Saw who?" Blitzangel asked. "When?"

"He's been under the entire time," First Aid explained. "I pulled him out of it when his systems showed distress. He's been like this since he's come online. Like he's seeing things that aren't there."

Blitzangel leaned over Drift, cradling his head in her hands so he would look her in the face. "Drift, look at me. I'm fine. Everyone is fine. You were just having a nightmare."

He stared at her, his yellow optics puzzled. "But.. I don't have nightmares. You have nightmares."

"Yes," she sighed. "I know."

His expression turned sympathetic. "I'm sorry, I thought maybe you were just making it up. I didn't think we actually could-"

"So what's going on in here?" Jazz voice rang through the bay.

Blitzangel glanced over to see both seconds had followed her and they had zeroed in on the unfamiliar white mech she was practically on top of . Putting these two parties together did not seem like a good idea at the moment. Blitzangel needed to defuse this situation right now.

"Drift, I have to talk to these two, I will be back."

He looked worried. "Wait. Hold on."

She smiled at him as she rubbed his cheek with her thumb. "I will be right back. I'm not going to leave you here, I promise."

Drift didn't say anything, but he looked only partially consoled as she left.

Blitzangel walked up to the two Autobots and blocked further entrance to the back of the room.

"You don't need to be in here right now," she told them, arms folded across her chest. "You're not helping the situation."

"Is that the guy you've been traveling around with?" Jazz said with a bit of irritation in his voice. "I've got some questions for him."

"I would like to speak to him as well," Prowl said, folding his own arms and copying Blitzangel's stance.

"No," she said with finality. "You are not talking to him, not today. You need to go."

"Oh come on," Jazz urged. "Just a little talk."

"No! Get out!" She began pushing them both back toward the door and at the threshold she held her ground. "Now you two listen to me, the reason he's here like that is because he saved my life, okay? Right now he's scared, he just got out of surgery and he doesn't know anyone here. So I'm not going to let the two of you play good cop, bad cop with him while he's strapped to a table, you got me?"

Jazz was surprised with the outburst. Prowl was frowning. Very seldom did anyone ever tell him what to do.

"I do not believe a few questions are going to hurt-"

Blitzangel was suddenly in the police car's face. "You do not take a single step into this medbay unless you are missing a limb. Or I will put you in that condition myself, you got me?"

Prowl's optics widened. Very seldom was he threatened like that, either.

"But Angel, babe," Jazz tried. "We came here for you. And I thought we were breaking some ground back there. I don't want this to, you know, mess that up."

Blitzangel touched his arm. "Nothing is messed up. You were very helpful. But now I have to help him."

Jazz didn't appear so sure.

"I will talk to you again," Blitzangel promised. "Just not right now."

"Okay," Jazz said softly.

"And you." Blitzangel said sternly as she turned to Prowl. Then her voice softened. "I will talk to you later, too." Her voice hardened again. "And stay out of the medbay, I mean it."

She departed with one last warning look before closing the doors and returning back to the distressed mech on the table.

"There," Blitzangel said as she pulled up a stool next to him. "Now it's just you and me tonight."  
Drift seemed dubious, but Blitzangel was making herself comfortable, resting her elbows on the table.

"Um, can I get these restraints off me?" he wondered.

Blitzangel gave him a maternal look. "If I do, you can't move around. Your back still isn't put back together yet."

"That's fine. I just... don't like it when I can't move."

"I can understand," the femme said as she opened the restraints on his wrists. "Now, do you want to tell me what happened? What were you dreaming about?"

"I don't dream," Drift insisted. "That's what organics do. This was... it felt so real. I don't know what it was. I woke up here in the medbay. I could see First Aid. I knew where I was. But he was standing right over there." Drift glanced, almost in fear, at a corner of the room. "I saw him as plain as day."

"Who?" Blitzangel asked, a bit irritated if it turned out one of the other Autobots were skulking around the med bay when they weren't supposed to.

Drift stiffened, then dropped his head back in defeat, looking at the ceiling. "Someone I thought was dead. Someone I know is dead."

"Drift, who?"

The white mech set his jaw. "His name was Lockdown. He was a member of my team. My _old_ team." He added the last part in a lower voice.

"And you know for sure he's dead?"

"I killed him myself. A very long time ago," Drift insisted. "But right when I woke up just now,

I swear I saw him standing there, looking at me, smiling at me. I heard his voice so clear as if he were talking in my head." He vented some air. "It was the closest experience I would ever consider to be a nightmare."

Blitzangel put a hand on his. "No, that's normal. Sometimes, when the system has experienced trauma, it can glitch and replay old memories. Your body has been under a lot of stress. You had your spine melted, it had to be dug out and all your nerves replaced. A few glitches like that are normal. It was just an old memory, nothing more.

Drift was shaking his head before Blitzangel had even finished. "This was no memory. I never had that conversation with him before."

The femme was dubious. "Are you sure? Maybe you just don't remember."

"He knew your name," Drift said with all seriousness, his engine heating with duress. "He said now that he found me, I would regret it. He would get his revenge. He would hurt the things I cared about. He would hurt you."

"Whatever you saw, it wasn't real," she insisted, unruffled. "First Aid would have noticed someone standing in the room, talking to you. And I am just fine. Believe me, nothing can hurt me while I'm here at this base. This is the safest place I could be." This time, she believed it. To her surprise, Blitzangel realized she felt this way because of those who currently occupied the base. She found herself glancing at the door for a moment. "And you are safe here, too. I promise."

Drift tiredly rubbed his face. "I know. I know it's impossible. Whatever I saw... there's no way he could be alive- that he could even be here on this planet. But it was like I could _feel _his presence. Not just this time. It's like... when I'm offline, I feel like there's danger coming. I don't know what's wrong with me."

Blitzangel pulled his hands away from his face. "It's not your fault. We went up against some bots we could not beat. You almost died. Now you're stuck on this table in a strange place unable to move. You feel helpless right now. It's normal. But don't worry, you'll be out of here soon and you'll start feeling better. In the meantime, I'm watching over you. I won't let anything happen to you."

Drift smiled at her. "You'd do that for me, huh?"

She smiled. "Of course. You've been taking care of me all this time. You saved my life."

He squeezed her hand as he searched her face. "You're different. You've changed lately."

The femme looked amused. "Have I?"

He reached up to touch her face. She didn't even flinch when he ran his knuckles across her cheek. "Yes. This place has been good for you."

"Perhaps it has."

Drift smile at her, a bit sadly, but he had calmed down enough for the medic to put him under again. Blitzangel held his hand in both of hers, pressing it against her cheek as he went offline. She stayed with him, watching over him, just as he had been looking after her for so long.


	14. Chapter 14: Stripped to the Wire

Rising Generations

Chapter Fourteen: Stripped to the Wire

Just as she promised, Blitzangel was there waiting when Drift was taken out of surgery. Her face was the first thing before him when the white mech came online.

"Ooh, hey there pretty femme," he grinned. "If only I could wake up to this every time, it would make my stay in here so much more pleasant."

"Well, First Aid says that was your last surgery. All your internal wiring has been restored," she replied.

"Excellent!" Drift promptly tried to sit up. His back refused to bend. He tried again with the same results, his optics widening in temporary panic. "What the- why can't I get up?"

"Because your spine isn't finished," First Aid announced as he walked into the room. "I had to put a brace on you to make sure you didn't try anything."

Drift's expression mirrored that of a child being told he had another shot left to go at the doctor's office. "But-but I thought I was finished with the surgeries." He looked like his mental capacity wouldn't survive another trip under the knife.

"No more surgeries," the medic assured him. "I just have to install a few things to complete your spinal strut. You'll be awake during the whole procedure. You should be up and running around in a few hours."

"Finally! I can't wait to get the slag out of here!"

Blitzangel patted Drift's chest plate. "You've been a very good patient. But until you're released, I would like to introduce you to someone."

Before Drift could ask who, a massive head with a disturbing set of jaws plopped itself onto his midsection. Drift squeaked a bit from the impact.

"This is Grimlock," Blitzangel told him, referring to the reptilian head resting on his abdomen. "He's going to stay here with you while I go take care of a few things."

"Wh- You're leaving me again?" Drift asked, his voice breathy with panic.

"I have some things I have to do," she insisted. "That's why Grimlock's here: to keep you company." She grabbed Drift's hand and stuck it on the Tyrannosaur's nose. "Scratch him here. He likes that."

Grimlock rumbled his agreement.

Drift was still unsure. "Why is he really here?"

"Fine. He's also here to make sure no uninvited guests come in while I'm gone."

Now Drift was skeptical. "Does this have anything to do with those black and white Autobots you were talking with last night? I can handle them, even flat on my back."

Blitzangel remained firm. "Trust me, when those two start tag-teaming you with their interrogation, you'll wish you had the dinosaur."

* * *

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe spent most of their time with their new "supervisor" on Earth, despite their aversion to Bluestreak having authority over them. The gray Autobot hardly attempted to make any use of that power. He was still same old Bluestreak and the twins enjoyed his company, along with the few other Autobots that had been left behind at the Ark. It was nice to catch up with them and discuss what had been going on between Earth and Cybertron.

They worked hard on Autobot City the first day. After their shift was over, any attempts to locate Blitzangel were fruitless. Apparently, stupid Jazz had scared her away and she had taken off far from the base site. According to other Autobots, that was normal practice for her when she felt upset and the proper protocol was to wait until she came back.

So the twins waited. They did their best to keep busy and worked another day at Autobot City. Sunstreaker especially. He would seem to get into a funk and just build away as if on automatic, his face in a blank expression as he thought about things to himself. Kup was impressed with their progress. He had pegged them as lazy, hot-rodding punks, only thirsty for battle. He was pleasantly surprised to see how well they chipped in to help.

When the second day had finished, they puttered around the base again for most of the night, ending up in Wheeljack's lab well after midnight. The neutral's escape pod was kept right outside and the twins poked around it. Wheeljack wasn't present at the time. He was probably off fiddling with one project or another elsewhere. Even without the inventor, the lab was comfortable enough to sit around in and talk.

Bluestreak was in the middle of giggling at one of his own jokes when he suddenly stopped, watching something behind him. Sunstreaker turned and followed his gaze. There was a purple femme leaning in the doorway. She looked like she had been there listening to them for a while.

"Angel, hi!" Bluestreak called.

Blitzangel knew the red and yellow Autobots had come to Earth with the two seconds. After already opening a dialog with Jazz and Prowl, she figured it would be best if she sought these two out on her own terms. No sense putting off something that was going to happen whether she wanted it to or not. Then she could at least control the when and where of the reunion instead of having them hunt her down at an inopportune moment.

Sunstreaker just stared at her for a while. "Crys," he finally said lowly as he got off the stool.  
He began crossing the distance of the large room toward her, his pace increasing with each step.

Blitzangel was starting to regret revealing herself as the yellow Autobot, quite a bit bigger than she, came at her faster than she was comfortable with. It felt too much like an attack. She backed up even as Sunstreaker grew closer, trying to keep the distance between them.

"Whoa!" she called, almost frantic, as she held out her hands in front of her.

Still, he backed her up against the wall, her hands pressing against his chest, trying to keep him at arm's length. He paused when he noticed the femme's fear.

"Slowly," she pleaded in a soft voice. "Just a little bit slower."

Sunstreaker looked confused. His frustration was still stronger than his caution. He advanced on her again. "Crys, I just want to-"

She pushed him back again, harder this time. "Stop."

Sunstreaker was a bit flustered. It wasn't the norm to have femmes reject his presence.  
Bluestreak grabbed his arm. "Sorry, Angel. He's just excited to see you. We've been hoping to see you for a while. Stupid me, I totally forgot to tell Sunstreaker that you don't like it when bots come up to you too fast. That was my bad, sorry."

Bluestreak hadn't forgotten. He had told the twins multiple times to keep their distance. Sunstreaker just couldn't fathom the reason. It seemed like a silly rule until now. When he saw the femme backed into the wall, pressed as tightly as she could to get away from him, Sunstreaker began to understand. He took a step back.

"Yeah, sorry Cr-Angel." He changed the name when Bluestreak cut him off by clearing his throat. "I didn't meant to scare you I just... I'm glad to see you-to see you're okay."

"I'm slowly getting toward okay," she said carefully, still holding up her hands as if he might rush her again. "It's just taking me a while."

Sunstreaker shifted, unsure what to do with himself. "Well, look, we came here for you, okay? So if you need any of us to do anything for you, all you have to do is ask."

She nodded in acknowledgment and then peered around Sunstreaker at the red Autobot hiding behind him. "Hello, Sideswipe."

"Hi," he said softly, watching his feet. He glanced around uncomfortably. "Are you still... mad at me?"

She vented some air. "No. I've got plenty of anger left, to tell the truth. But no, I'm not mad at you." She leaned forward to try and catch his gaze. "You gave me the good ass kicking I needed, even though I wasn't too grateful for it at the time. It got me out of there. You helped me get to this point."

He slowly raised his head to meet her gaze, his optics regretful. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, me too."

Sideswipe was suddenly in her space, arms around her. To her horror, he swept her up in a tight embrace. Reflexively the femme's blades snapped out, but her arms stayed stiffly at her side. No one moved for a moment. Then, the blades slowly slid back and Sideswipe let her go.

"Sorry," he said again.

She had her hands up to his chest as if to stop him from coming at her again. Then she calmed herself down and lowered them once more.

"It's okay," she vented. "Just... I'm just trying to take baby steps."

"So you... doing okay?" Sunstreaker wondered, wanting her attention back on him. "They treating you good around here?"

"Yeah," Blitzangel confirmed softly. "Everyone has been very accommodating. I've been getting better. It's been slow, but I'm working on it." She looked at him regretfully. "I threw up in your room."

"Yeah." Sunstreaker huffed some air, mirroring her tone of remorse. "I know."

She lowered her head. Sunstreaker reached out to her and, very slowly, placed a hand on the back of her helm. He coaxed her in until the side of her head barely touched his chest.

"It'll be okay," he said softly. "Don't worry about it."

"Hi everyone!" Wheeljack sang as he came into his lab. Unlike Ratchet, who hated uninvited guests in his domain, Wheeljack was always happy to have company so he could share his hijinks.

Sunstreaker entered a more protective stance as the new Autobot walked in. Wheeljack didn't even notice.

"What are we up to? Anything interesting?"

No one said anything. Wheeljack was hardly discouraged. He tipped his head so he could see the face of the shorter femme.

"You wanna work on the shuttle some?"

She pulled away from Sunstreaker, a bit confused that her answer wasn't immediately yes. Blitzangel was surprised that she wasn't eager to work on it at all. Why?

"You been making sure she's taken care of, Wheeljack?" Sunstreaker said before Blitzangel could answer. "Since Ratchet isn't here any more and we have no idea what kind of quack's in the medbay, I hope you've been seeing to all her medical care personally. I'm sure Ratchet would like to know as well."

"I would be glad to," Wheeljack confirmed. "If she ever allowed anyone to look at her systems."  
Sunstreaker instantly turned his accusing glare from the inventor to the femme. She shrank under his gaze. "You haven't let anyone look at you!" he barked at her, not realizing how harsh his tone was.

Blitzangel stepped back from him, head down like a child being scolded. She opened her mouth, but the words to properly explain her predicament would not come out.

"We don't know what those Decepticons did to you!" Sunstreaker blazed on, unanswered. "What if they bugged that body? What if it's full of recording equipment? What if they put a bomb in there? They could have done anything to you and you wouldn't know, would you?"

"I don't think I can-"

"Would you?" Sunstreaker pressed, his irritated face too close to hers.

He was far too close. She took a step back from him, her arms to her chest defensively.

"You need to let someone look at you," Sunstreaker continued. "It's for your own health. What if someone put some nasty virus in you that's still swimming around in there, waiting to rear its ugly head? Don't you want to get to it first?"

Blitzangel backed up some more. It just made Sunstreaker even angrier. Not necessarily angry at the femme, but at those who put her in this state. He was angry at whatever lowlife put the fear of physical contact in her. He wanted to tear whoever it was to shreds. With his outer appearance, however, he just looked angry at everything. Bluestreak stepped in between them a bit in order to help diffuse the situation.

"It's okay; she doesn't really need someone to look at her right now. She looks pretty healthy at the moment, don't you think? Not that I'm saying one shouldn't be checked out regularly. I mean, every bot knows that's common sense. Uh... not that you don't have common sense, Angel, I'm sure you know what's good for you. Though Sunstreaker can be right, too. It may not be practical if you don't let a medic look at you now and then but you are totally right Angel if you don't want anyone to touch you-"

Sideswipe, immune to both his brother's temper and Bluestreak's prattle, suddenly cut in with his own thoughts. "You know what would solve all the problems," he mused aloud. "is if she just got herself a new body."

Sunstreaker paused, optics widening with realization. "Yes, of course! Wheeljack, you still have it, right?"

For a brief and rare moment, the inventor appeared unsure. "Yes.. I still have it..."

"Well, were you ever going to show it to her?" the yellow Autobot demanded.

"Show me what?" Blitzangel found herself asking.

Wheeljack was still hesitant. He and Perceptor had already agreed beforehand that now was not the time to show her what the twins had currently brought to her attention. She still needed more time. She didn't seem to be stable enough yet. However, Sideswipe's words rang a bit of truth. Any residual trauma brought on by physical damage and any and all bugs or other such devices would be rendered obsolete if she were transferred to a new body. It wouldn't much help with the programming aspect, though the scientists could sneak a peek in there during the transfer to do a little housekeeping while the femme was under. It sounded like a win-win situation if all went well.

"I guess there's no hiding it now," Wheeljack relented. "Come on, I'll show ya." Before he could even think about it, he moved to place his hand on her back to guide her. But Blitzangel didn't flinch and didn't seem to mind the mild contact. Perhaps she was getting better and it was time after all.

Wheeljack steered her toward a particular closet. He pressed a button on the wall and a door slid open, revealing a robot body standing at patient attention inside. The body design was not familiar to Blitzangel. It was, however, clearly female.

She looked at it quietly, face blank.

"Uh, Perceptor and I started work on this after we lost ya," Wheeljack said, answering a personal need to fill the silence. "Ratchet would assist with it sometimes. It helped us stay hopeful we would find you again."

Blitzangel continued to look at it. This wasn't just any body; it was meant to be her body. Her optic band swept over it, taking in the form and the blue, yellow and white colors. It was a design quite different from her own. No wings, no blades. It did have wheels, however: a car mode. Blitzangel lightly grazed her fingers over the treads. A car mode had been all she wanted back then. She had daydreamed of being able to drive into town, to enjoy hiding in plain sight among a people she was no longer part of. She dreamed of racing with other Autobots over the landscape, of being one of them. But when she looked at the face of the new body, Blitzangel saw only a stranger.

"So?" Sunstreaker asked impatiently after the silence had stretched too long for his liking. "Are we gonna put you in there or what?"

Blitzangel stared at the shell for a moment longer and then turned to Wheeljack. "I can't. I'm not ready yet."

The inventor nodded. "That's quite alright-"

"What do you mean you can't?" Sunstreaker cut in. "We made this for you! I designed it. I designed it for you!"

"It is very beautiful, Sunstreaker, but it is not for me. Not right now."

The yellow Autobot was baffled. "Not for- what does that even mean? This was built for you! It took months to put this together! And now you don't want it?"

Blitzangel looked at it. A voice in the back of her head told her now wasn't the time to leave this body behind. Not only that, but she had told Hound she felt safe in this form. It was the truth. She knew how to use it. She was not prepared to give up all she knew for this brightly colored shell. She wasn't about to trade blades for tires.

"I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm ready to transfer to a new body yet. I like this body."

"You like it?" Sunstreaker repeated, his voice an octave higher. "The Decepticons built that piece of scrap. How can you want to keep it?"

Blitzangel frowned at him. "I'm sorry you don't like the way I look, Sunstreaker, but that's not my problem. I'm keeping this body."

The yellow Autobot tried to change his strategy even as Bluestreak gave him the motion to back down. "Look Cr-Angel- you've got to have someone look at you. You're not thinking clearly. Your circuits are still scrambled."

He tried to put his hands on her shoulders, but the purple femme stepped away.

"I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions. Just because you don't like them, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with me."

"You're not even listening!" Sunstreaker barked. "This will solve your problems! Why don't you want it? You like being this messed up?"

Blitzagel immediately looked hurt. "What the hell do you know about solving my problems?" she asked quietly.

"Look, if you would just listen and do it then-"

"I said no!" The femme's hand shot through the chest of the other body.

All Autobots, Sunstreaker especially, were startled speechless as Blitzangel yanked out a large piece of hardware. If that attack had been on a living body, it could have very possibly been a kill shot, right through the spark.

Blitzangel's growl instantly turned to an expression of regret.

"Sorry," she said softly as she handed the broken mechanism to Wheeljack. Then she hastened herself out of the lab. This time, no one tried to argue with her, or follow.

Blitzangel hurried for the Ark exit, feeling ashamed. She shouldn't have let her temper get out of control. She shouldn't have ruined that beautiful body which they had built. It was so hard to communicate how she felt and what she wanted. Even the few things she was able to get into words, no one understood them. It was so frustrating. And what was so wrong with the way she looked anyway?

She paused and watched the bright green reflection of her visor on the metal wall. Stepping closer, Blitzangel tried to get a better look at herself. Unfortunately, the Ark wall was an imperfect surface. No matter how close she pressed, all she could see was a purplish blob and the light of her optic band.

"I can help you with that."

Blitzangel spun around to see Tracks standing behind her. The blue Corvette said nothing more, but inclined his head as a sign to follow him. Blitzangel wasn't sure why she did, but she found herself standing in Tracks' immaculate quarters, a place she had never been before.

The Autobot had various odds and ends, mostly Earth memorabilia, displayed neatly on shelves and pictures of expensive and exotic cars on his wall. A section of the wall slid back, revealing a tall mirror that stretched almost to the ceiling. Blitzangel was instantly mesmerized by it. Even in her old body, she had never been able to find a good reflective surface to properly see what she looked like.

The femme grabbed the sides of the mirror as if it would suddenly flee, taking her reflection with it. She studied her appearance carefully, taking in the shape of her face, the full bottom lip, her short, sharp chin. She gazed at her optic band from side to side, daring to touch it lightly. She took note of the sharp protrusions from her head, like fox ears, always at attention.

She noted the teal accenting the dark purple and black of her paint. She looked at the wings on her back, like a cape, and the sharp angles of her body. Then she frowned at her reflection when Tracks came up behind her. She was still so short.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Blitzangel shrugged at herself. "It's faster, stronger, and it's got weapons. That's all I care about." She paused. "What do you think?"

Tracks looked her up and down. "Not bad. I have a few criticisms when it comes to Decepticon form and function, not to mention aesthetics, but considering what they had to work with, it could have been worse. You are certainly a step up from the last design."

The femme huffed, unoffended. "Yes, a step up in functionality, but in aesthetics, as you put it, I can't tell the difference."

"You have plebeian optics, but perhaps one day you will be an aficionado like myself."

Blitzangel turned around and grabbed the blue Autobot's chin, pulling his face down toward her. At first, Tracks assumed it was to inspect his own appearance. But then it became clear her attention was fully on his damaged optic.

"That would be so easy to fix. I could do it in an hour, tops," she informed him. "So why don't you get yourself repaired to upgrade your own appearance? And if you tell me about some guilt bullshit, I'm going to be disappointed."

Tracks backed up, leaning against the wall. "What's wrong with a little guilt?"

Blitzangel was unconvinced. "Oh please, you don't even like me."

He just smiled at her. "I sure don't." His expression turned thoughtful. "I do have a story for you, though."

The femme looked skeptical. "A story about what?"

He sat down on the edge of his cot and patted the place beside him. "Just sit down and listen."

Blitzangel did as she was told, slowly, and continued to watch the blue Autobot suspiciously.

"About two summers ago," Tracks began, "Prowl gave me an assignment. He wanted me to patrol a certain part of town every night. He did not give similar orders to anyone else, nor did he say what I was patrolling for. He just told me to keep an optic on a certain neighborhood. I thought he was off his nut, but I did what he said. It got me out of the base and into the city.

"Across the street from where I was stationed, I noticed this human. I saw her walk home every evening, always by herself. She would stay in at night, even on the weekends. It seemed rather pathetic to me. I thought she must have been miserable by herself," Tracks began a shadow of a smile despite himself. "I could see her in the window, dancing. All alone, cheerful, singing, living in this old, run-down neighborhood with nothing. My processor could not wrap around this. For all of my spark, I could not understand what she had to dance about."

Blitzangel gave him a humorless smile as if she already knew she was the punchline of this joke.

Tracks shifted. "Then, the day after Halloween, Prowl took me off the assignment. Again, no explanation. After a couple of days, I went back there on my own time. Now I could finally attempt to engage this human without breaking the protocol of my assignment." He huffed some air. "Her apartment was dark. As was it the next night and the next. Soon after, however, we had an annoying, new pink member of the Ark running around."

"I believe they call that serendipity," Blitzangel said neutrally.

"I don't even know what burns my grill more," Tracks went on with a frown. "The complete and utter disappointment in meeting you or that Prowl knows me so well that he could order me to watch you without actually ordering me to watch you."

"So why didn't you ever tell me any of this before?" the femme asked.

"I tried! But you are always so slagging difficult to talk to!"

"You insulted me the first time I saw you!"

Tracks stood, looking down at her. "I was trying to prepare you for life with a less than pleasing physical design! A problem you no longer have, I might add."

Blitzangel frowned at the compliment. "You're a shallow jackass."

"Yes, I am."

"And this doesn't answer my question at all. If all you care about is physical appearance then why do you not get yourself repaired?"

"I'm getting to it, you-" Tracks cut himself off, trying to catch his own temper. He looked at the wall, voice softening. "We have never liked each other and yet, you saved my life. Not only that, you gave up who you were for me. You will never be the same again." He gave a bitter chuckle as he looked at the floor. "It's not even your job to protect anyone and you save me, someone you don't even like."

The blue Autobot clenched and unclenched his fists as if grasping for something impalpable. "You don't make any sense to me! You're happy when you have nothing to be happy about. You give your life for bots you don't like. And you're unhappy when you're finally beautiful."

He paused and turned away from her, rubbing his optics with a thumb and finger. "To answer your question: no, I do not stay this way because I feel guilty. When they dragged what was left of me back to the Ark, my spark went out twice on Ratchet's table. In all this time, all the battles I have been in, I have never been that close to death. But for some reason, I survived. I was given a second chance.

"You know our culture has a practice of showing mourning for passed sparks by wearing the outer damage earned during the battle in which our loved ones had passed."

Blitzangel tipped her head. She actually had not known that.

Tracks walked over to his mirror and grabbed the edge. "More than that, I wanted a reminder of what happened and how little I really know. I needed to beat it into my processor to do things differently this time. I wanted something to remind me to be stronger, braver, more compassionate, and more forgiving."

He fell quiet, staring at himself in the mirror, optics wandering over his warped optic, his bent face plates, his marred chest and arms. Then his gaze settled on the reflection of the femme sitting behind him.

"I'm not forgiving you," Blitzangel told him flatly.

Tracks rounded on her, optics blazing. "Primus in the smelter, woman! Have you not listened to a thing I've been trying to tell you?"

Blitzangel smirked at him. "I think I kept you alive because I enjoy pissing you off."

The Autobot's expression was still sour. "You are an insufferable female, you know that?"

Before Blitzangel could come up with a scalding and more infuriating retort, there was a knock on the open doorway. Barely able to be contained in the massive frame was the impressive bulk of Ultra Magnus.

"I would like to talk with you," he said.

Both present in the room pointed questioningly to themselves in the same fashion.

"You," Ultra Magnus said, pointing to Blitzangel.

Inwardly, she sank. She had really been hoping it was Tracks he wanted to speak to.

"It won't be too long," the base commander insisted.

Blitzangel walked toward the door, instantly meeker than she had been only a moment before. Ultra Magnus turned to go, fully expecting to be followed without turning back to check. Blitzangel remained in his shadow, walking slightly behind him even though there was plenty of room for the two of them to walk abreast. The femme held back, not from intimidation, but from embarrassment.

Her pride still sported an ample bruise from all Ultra Magnus has witnessed from her. He had seen her at her most pathetic. When she had wished not a single soul to have witnessed, he had watched. Not only that, but he had remained and sat with her in her despair. Even when she had begged to him to leave her to the oblivion of her pain and emotional anguish he did not abandon her. Instead, he gathered her, letting her chaotic emotions beat against him, taking her fits and sobs and screams silently like an untouchable, stalwart mountain in a violent storm.

When Blitzangel had awoken from her ordeal she was alone on Jazz's old berth. She had not seen the base commander since. While she was grateful not to have to face up to him while she was recovering, at the same time she was unappreciative for the constant trepidation of running into him again. She knew the moment she did, she would have to answer for what he had seen and he would want answers.

Now he had finally come for her. Blitzangel steeled herself for another grilling when they reached his office. But Ultra Magnus did not lead them to his office. Instead, he strode out of the Ark, into the early morning sun, the small femme still keeping curiously in his shadow. They rounded the girth of the volcano together, Blitzangel now keeping up with him, curiosity in her face.  
"I wanted to tell you about Drift," he finally spoke. "Beyond prying audials."

"Drift?" she wondered, completely floored by the unexpected topic. "Is everything... okay with him?"

"I was just wondering," Ultra Magnus said without looking at her. "how much do you know about his past?"

The femme clammed up. She was just as much disinclined to discuss it.

"Did you know he used to be a Decepticon?" Ultra Magnus continued, ignoring her attitude. "His name was Deadlock."

Blitzangel's mouth almost fell open. Here she was was thinking he was going to try to weasel information out of her. It seemed he knew more about her travel companion than she did. But she did not speak, afraid to betray anything Drift may not want her to.

"Deadlock was a part of Megatron's elite team of assassins. They were a team of four and they were..." the base commander huffed out air like a sigh, "terrifying. Efficient, flawless, they never once failed to take down their mark. Megatron dispatched his assassins to dispose of anyone who got in the way of his war. Their targets would simply disappear and were never heard from again, no matter where they ran, no matter how tight the security. They would come in swiftly, silently and never miss their target." He sighed again. "Never. I know this because I failed not once, but twice, to come up with an effective strategy to keep those targets safe."

Blitzangel was having trouble wrapping her processor around this story. Drift himself told her he had worked for Megatron. But she couldn't imagine that the ruthlessness described from the white mech she had come to know. While she had seen him work various jobs across the cosmos, he still seemed so harmless to her.

"How do you know for sure Drift is this Deadlock?"

Ultra Magnus smiled humorlessly to himself. "After all the centuries I've allowed him to dock at Iacon, I only realized it these past few days. He never brought any of his weapons into the city and it was wise that he did not. That third sword on his back gives him away." Ultra Magnus clenched his fists, the bitterness of failure in his voice. "I will never forget that sword as long as I live. Though it didn't belong to Deadlock back then. That sword was worn by their leader, Wing. I suppose since he's dead, someone has to carry it around."

"What happened to him?" Blitzangel found herself asking, wondering why she was suddenly concerned over the death of a long-expired assassin.

Ultra Magnus finally looked down at her and her self-consciousness was overshadowed by curiosity.

"Megatron's unprecedented team of assassins was, one day, wiped out. Four Decepticons without equal were pronounced dead. No one knows when or how, they were just suddenly... not in existence anymore. I would assume your friend Drift may be the only one who knows the truth about what happened to them."

"Are you suggesting Drift killed his team?" the femme asked, disbelief in her voice.

"It is one possibility of many, but it certainly wouldn't get either of us anywhere to go off a random assumption."

Blitzangel was quiet for a moment. "If you know this, why did you let Drift stay here? Why is he not under guard?"

"Megatron's team killed a lot of good bots who were trying to prevent deaths and promote peace. But if Drift has gone this far to extricate himself from his past, maybe he has earned the benefit of a doubt. Besides," Ultra Magnus tipped his head toward the femme. "I've seen him with you. He wants to protect you, and the need to protect often trumps the need for anything else."

She gawked. "How did you-" She answered the question herself as she instantly thought of Red Alert, still sequestered somewhere in the base. The Ark's constant eyes and ears.

Ultra Magnus just smiled at her. Then he pointed two fingers at his optics and then pointed them to her in an 'I'm watching you' gesture.

The two maneuvered around a part of the volcano that jutted out farther than the rest of the base. As it turned out, the obstruction was shielding two certain Autobots from view who were looking for a bit of privacy. It was Arcee and Springer, the femme pressing her back against the mountain while the mech loomed over her, whispering to her while she smiled self-consciously and shyly touched his chest.

Blitzangel outwardly gawked at them, forgetting herself. She knew as surely as she knew so many other facts that Cybertronians could and did get involved in romantic relationships. But for some reason, just knowing this didn't make it real until she saw it for herself: the two genders together, moving in close, giving each other that specific look.

Ultra Magnus made a sound akin to clearing his throat. It caught the couple's attention as well as brought Blitzangel back to her senses. She quickly brought herself to task and looked away as if they had never been that interesting. Arcee, for her part, looked rather embarrassed while Springer just smirked at his base commander and tugged the femme with him as they wandered off somewhere else.

Blitzangel stood quietly, not trying to let the awkwardness of the moment affect her. Ultra Magnus successfully gave her an out.

"I just got word from the med bay that Drift has been released. You should go check on him."

Before she could say anything else, Ultra Magnus had transformed and rumbled off toward Autobot City.

* * *

"I said," Prowl repeated in a more irritated tone. "I want you to tell me who you are."

The white mech he was addressing brazenly had his back to the SIC and was stretching and bending, testing out his newly repaired spinal strut.

Prowl tapped his foot. "I expect an answer."

"I know you do," Drift said conversationally. "But I don't have to give you one."

"I am the Autobot second in command directly under Optimus Prime. If you do not wish to discuss this with me freely, I can make other arrangements to get the information I need from you."

Ignoring the threat, Drift reached for the tall, thin sword set to rest against the wall. It had ancient Cybertronian glyphs etched into the black scabbard. As of yet, there had been no order to keep the neutral away from his weapons once he was repaired, despite advisement by certain Autobots.

Drift clipped the blade to his back. "I know who you are and what power you have on Cybertron. But I also know that you have no such power here on Earth. Therefore, I don't have to answer your questions."

He picked up one of the wider swords he kept at his hips and ran his line of sight down the blade to check it for imperfections. He smiled at Prowl's slack-jawed expression. "One hears things around the medbay."

"Me Grimlock tell him," the massive metal dinosaur in the room said. "Him Drift tell me Grimlock many stories of him in space. See many things. Fight many battles. Me Grimlock think only fair to give stories back. Me Grimlock thought it too funny not to say so."

Prowl frowned at him.

"My new friend Grimlock," Drift introduced. "I'm sure you two have met."

"Him Drift tell me many things. Have good time in space," Grimlock continued. "But not Autobot or Decepticon. Me Grimlock not know that possible. Me Grimlock want to be neutral now."

"We'll discuss it later," Prowl told him.

"Good," Drift said. He had both of his broad swords in hand now. In an impressive display of dexterity and finesse, he twirled the massive blades around, narrowly missing all the different odds and ends scattered about the small space. "Because we're going out for some practice."

First Aid winced at the thought of losing some of his equipment, but everything remained untouched. The medic relaxed when Drift sheathed the swords at his hips and started out of the med bay with a "Thanks, Doc."

Grimlock lumbered eagerly behind him, his tail not quite as careful about knocking things over on his way out.

"Finally, not my problem anymore," First Aid sighed.

Prowl skulked after them. This was his problem, big time.

* * *

Blitzangel found who she was looking for outside the base in a spot he deemed worthy of his outdoor activities. She was not surprised. Drift liked open spaces unless he was in his shuttle. He also had a hard time sitting still, even in the shuttle. Being strapped to a table for several days would have him running outside the first chance he got.

So in the morning sun he was found, swords out and attacking the larger stature of Grimlock's robot form. The Dinobot leader parried the advance with an impressively sized sword himself. The two made quite a sparring pair. Grimlock swung his blade with force enough to cleave a tree in two. The lighter, faster Drift danced around the behemoth, artfully dodging each swipe. In between he would instruct the Dinobot how to make better use of the energy spent with each attack.

Blitzangel enjoyed watching them and chose not to announce her arrival for the moment. It seemed she wasn't the only spectator when Prowl approached and stood next to her.

"Hello...Angel." He was hesitant to use her new designation as if he thought he were committing a social faux pas.

Blitzangel just nodded to him, polite and neutral. "Hello, Prowl."

Prowl continued to stand next to her, appearing to want to say something else, but he couldn't find the words. Blitzangel wasn't even looking at him any longer.

"Angel?" he began softly.

"Angel!" Drift called happily when he realized she was there. "Angel, Angel, Angel!" His gaze remained riveted on her as he dodged Grimlock's blade meant to rend his head from his shoulders and bounded toward her like an excited puppy. "Check it out. The Doc gave me a clean bill of health." He posed in front of her.

"Yes." She nodded. "And I see you are eager to reverse that diagnosis as quickly as you can by picking a fight with the biggest guy on the block."

"Nah, Grimlock and me, we're just messing around."

Prowl had been concerned at first with how quickly the neutral had run up to Blitzangel. But Drift had stopped just a foot short and made no attempt to establish physical contact whatsoever. This surprised the SIC a bit. With the attitude he received earlier, he would have guessed Drift would have taken the first opportunity to make some kind of possessive gesture toward the femme. But instead, Drift seemed to be keeping a respectful distance despite his excitement to see her.

"Turn around," Blitzangel ordered. "Let me get a look at that."

Drift obediently presented his back to her. Blitzangel pulled off the ornate sword he kept and hardly ever used. She recalled what Ultra Magnus had told her about that particular weapon. The writing etched into it looked Cybertronian in origin, but she couldn't read it. She found that odd since she now understood both written and spoken Cybertronian. She handed it to Drift without a word and opened his back panels to inspect his spinal strut.

Prowl watched the white mech, analyzing every little bit of body language as the two interacted. Drift had been so self confident earlier, now he stood quietly, almost meekly under Blitzangel's scrutinizing gaze, fiddling with the sword in his hand. He shifted a little as her fingers danced over his back, checking his physical condition. Prowl's sensors showed that Drift's core temperature had ticked up a little above normal at her touch.

Not liking that reaction, Prowl stepped close to Blitzangel, trying to catch her attention. "I would like to talk to you sometime."

"Hn," was the only sound she made in response. The repair work looked good. Rather pristine, actually. Though she still harbored the personal opinion that Ratchet could have done a faster job of it with the same results. Maybe First Aid was slowing the progress on purpose to keep Drift out of commission longer.

"Looks good," she finally announced. "Let's keep it that way, shall we?"

Drift chuckled. "I'll try my best. Though I certainly wouldn't mind getting hurt again if next time you nurse me back to health yourself."

Blitzangel seemed to ignore the comment as she had ignored Prowl and clicked all the panels shut. She then held out her hand for the sword and Drift gave it to her. She returned it to its place on his back.

Prowl took this moment to try again. "When would be a convenient time for us to discuss a few things?"

The femme stiffened. It was clear in her body language and tone she didn't really want to commit to any discussion. "I don't know. Not right now, okay?"

"Angel, come spar with Grimlock and me," Drift suggested, urging her attention elsewhere. "We're having a lot of fun and you don't want to get rusty."

"I realize now might not be the most opportune time," Prowl persisted. "If I could just get a commitment for a certain time later on, that would be fine."

"I said I don't know," she shot back flatly.

Drift grabbed her hand, pulling her away from the Autobot that seemed to be aggravating her. "Come on, you look like you could use some fun."

Prowl would not be brushed off, he stayed stubbornly next to her. "You told me last night we would be discussing this later. I'm just asking for-"

"God, Prowl!" She cut him off. "I told you I don't know! Just drop it already!"

The SIC stared at her, optics wide, silent.

Blitzangel didn't give him time to recover. She grabbed Drift's hand. "Come on, let's go somewhere else."

Drift looked a bit confused himself at the outburst, but allowed her to tug him forward.

"Grimlock, you can come, too," she said as she passed him.

The Dinobot leader took one look at Prowl, sheathed his sword, then transformed into dinosaur mode and lumbered after the other two.

Blitzangel began to lead them toward the entrance of the Ark when she saw Sunstreaker's bright yellow form loitering at its mouth. She quickly steered them away from it with jerk to Drift's arm.

"Don't like that one either, huh?" he said blithely as he eyed the yellow mech. He could see Sunstreaker's disapproval clear as day from even that distance.

"He's uh... cranky," was Blitzangel's explanation. "Stay away from him."

The three, instead, traversed the volcano's perimeter until they came to a separate entrance which was Wheeljack's lab. Blitzangel felt bad coming back after what she did earlier, but she was running out of options. Plus, she would much rather face Wheeljack than Sunstreaker at the moment. The inventor, however, wasn't alone in his lab. Bluestreak was still there, but so were two humans, male and female. They looked young, teenagers. Now that Blitzangel thought about it, she had seen an unfamiliar car parked near the Ark.

The Autobots actually had their backs to the entrance. Maybe the three of them could sneak past. Well, the two of them might; no one was going to ignore Grimlock. But maybe they could walk through unharrassed anyway.

"Hey Wheeljack," the female human said. "Who are those guys?"

Both Autobots turned and, for a second, Blitzangel looked like a rabbit caught in Mr Mcgregor's garden. Neither Wheeljack nor Bluestreak said anything to her. Her last impression was probably still lingering with them.

"Hey, you're a femme," the human girl continued, pointing at Blitzangel. "Like Arcee."

Blitzangel's processor instantly went back to her last memory of the pink femme, backed up against the side of Mt. Saint Hilary, with the mech she seemed very fond of. Blitzangel quickly shot that thought right out of her head.

"You don't have Autobot symbols. You're both neutrals?" The girl seemed excited by the prospect.

"Uh yeah, this is Drift and Blitzangel," Wheeljack said. "They're just... passing through... I think."

Drift stepped toward the humans, intrigued, releasing the purple femme's hand. Drift didn't seem to notice Blitzangel was keeping her distance. His gaze was trained on the two life forms standing on the table. The young male was dressed in dark colors and seemed very unimpressed with anything he looked at. The female was slightly more colorful, with colored streaks in her hair. She looked delighted as Drift settled his yellow optics at her level.

"What are you?" he asked.

"We're human," the female said. "The indigenous lifeforms of Earth. This is our planet."

Drift tipped his head. "You're what I see when I watch Earth videos? I thought you would be bigger."

She laughed. "I'm afraid not. My name is Clarissa. This is Danny." She pointed to her disinterested companion.

At that point, Grimlock rumbled low in his throat and trundled off out the door. He wasn't too subtle about it, either.

"And there goes Grimlock, surly as ever," Clarissa commented. "He doesn't like us very much."

"Nah, he just worries about being around something so small and fragile," Drift assured her.

"You think?" Clarissa wondered.

"Oh yeah, I'm a good judge of character."

_Says the bot who worked for Megatron_, Blitzangel thought to herself. It brought what Ultra Magnus said to her to the forefront of her thoughts again. This Drift, her Drift? Was he really as brutal as he had been described?

"We're not THAT small," Daniel Witwicky insisted, hands in his pockets. Having grown up around Cybertronians his entire life, he didn't find the size difference strange at all.

"It's kinda cool though," Clarissa said. "We're just the right size to ride in your vehicle modes."

Drift's optics lit up as if he had just been given a fabulous invitation. "Into the city?" he squeaked with excitement, pointing out toward the buildings in the distance.

Clarissa clapped at the idea. "Yes! Let's go into the city! I'll show you what Earth is like!"

"Uh, I don't know if that's a good idea," Wheeljack objected. "He's never been out past the base before. He doesn't know the traffic laws."

"I'll drive, then," Clarissa replied without worry as she climbed down the table. "You could come with us, Wheeljack, if you wanted to," she added with an enticing tone. Since Bumblebee was no longer on Earth, the inventor had taken his place as her favorite Autobot within driving distance.

"I had probably better." Or Carly might string him up by his spark if she found out Wheeljack let them go with the neutral alone.

Drift was excitedly looking around as if he needed permission from someone to go soak up the local culture. He spotted Blitzangel in the back. "Can I go? Is that okay with you?"

She flipped her hand at him. "I'm not your maker, I don't care where you go."

"Do you want to come with us?"

She almost snorted. "No, I can't. I don't have a city-friendly alt mode, remember? I don't think those poor people would take kindly to me low buzzing everyone and shattering their windows."

Drift's shoulders sank and he took her hand. Clarissa thought it was terribly adorable.

"Do you want me to stay with you, then?"

Blitzangel retrieved her hand. "No, I want you to get out. I know you're going to drive everyone nuts if you stay in here." She gave him a gentle push toward the exit. "Go, look at the sights, have fun. But behave yourself, okay?"

Drift grabbed her shoulders, kissing her quickly on the teal diamond adorning her forehead. "You're the best!"

Blitzangel looked a little nonplussed at the sudden display of affection.

Drift had already rejoined the humans and transformed into vehicle mode which resembled a car. It had the right shape and four wheels, but the design was not from any Earth manufacturer. He scanned Wheeljack's alt mode and shifted his interior until his cab had the same semblance of an Earth car interior.

"Sweet," Clarissa said in approval as she got into the driver's seat of the slick, white vehicle. "We're going to be turning some heads with this. Your car mode is sexy hot, Drift."

Drift revved his engine. "You should see me race."

"No racing," Wheeljack's car mode said over their radio. "You will drive safely and carefully in the city so I don't have to return your smoldering carcasses to your parents."

"How can you have fun without the smoldering?" Drift asked with humor in his voice.

Daniel got into the passenger side of the white car. Clarissa stepped on the gas pedal. "I promise Wheeljack's a lot more fun when you get to know him better."

Blitzangel watched Drift drive away, Wheeljack on his tail. She stood there for a while until they were nothing but dust clouds in the distance. She turned her head and suddenly remembered there was another Autobot in the room. Bluestreak had been uncharacteristically silent the entire time the femme had been present. Even now, he still stood behind the table, giving her a hesitant, but friendly smile with a small shrug. At least he wasn't overtly ignoring her like Wheeljack was. But Bluestreak obviously didn't know what to say to her either after the earlier outburst he had witnessed.

The purple femme was just going to leave it at that and carry on out the door when she saw someone blocking the way. It was Sunstreaker. Again. Leaning against the frame and frowning exactly like he had been earlier. Blitzangel froze in her steps, trying to decide whether she should turn and go out the back of the volcano or try her luck getting past the yellow Autobot.

She purposely turned away from him and moved to go outside.

"Hey, where are you going?" Sunstreaker demanded. "I want to talk to you."

Blitzangel turned around again, stiffly watching the frowning Autobot as if she expected a physical blow from him. Sunstreaker just continued to glare at her and she hated him for it. There was something about his gaze, his mere presence, that was rubbing her temper raw like sandpaper on her nerves. She would have preferred Prowl with his subtle needling over Sunstreaker at this point. At least the SIC knew when it was time to make himself scarce.

"What?" she barked at him after too much silence, her fists clenched. "What the hell do you want?"

Sunstreaker's scowl compressed into a tight line. "You have to stop being so angry at all of us."  
It wasn't the response she was expecting."What?"

Sunstreaker stopping leaning on the door frame and walked into the room. "Look, what happened to you was not our fault, even though we tried our damnedest to do everything we could for you. We still do." He walked over to Wheeljack's table, the one Bluestreak was keeping between himself and the femme, and took his turn to be indolent against it. "It's okay if you're angry, but you have to stop acting like you don't want anything to do with us and stop treating that neutral like he's your only friend in the world."

Blitzangel had been frowning, wondering if this was still coming from when she had damaged Sunstreaker's precious femme design. Then she visibly bristled when Drift was mentioned. "Drift has been the only one who's tried to help me without forcing anything on me," Blitzangel shot back. "That's more than you can say. So stop acting like you're better than him."

"I AM better than him," Sunstreaker growled. "All of us here are better than he is." He glanced at Drift's space pod. "We're better for you."

Blitzangel's irritation advanced into impatience. She was tiring of this conversation rather quickly. "Why is that?" she huffed like an impertinent child.

"Because we're your family!" Sunstreaker declared with such force her whole being straightened and listened. "I don't care if you think we gave up on you, because we didn't. We still haven't. No matter where you go, not matter what happens to you, we'll still be here for you. Me, 'Swipe, Wheeljack, Ratchet, Prime, Jazz, Prowl, Blue." He motioned to Bluestreak standing behind him. "Do you want me to go on? Hound, Blaster, the Dinobots, Ironhide, Perceptor... all of us. We're you're family, not that stupid Drift. And we don't give up on you even if you give up on us, you idiot! That's what family does."

Impassioned by his own outburst, Sunstreaker couldn't stay in there any more and he stormed out of the room. Blitzangel was still reeling from the bombardment of his words. She wasn't sure what to do with herself. Her gaze fell on Bluestreak again who was looking like he wished he could blend into the walls. The gray Autobot, once he knew he had her attention, stiffened and also fled the room after Sunstreaker. Blitzangel was left alone.

* * *

Driving through the city with the Cybertronian who had only been on Earth for a few days was going well. After Drift's initial disappointment that he couldn't stop and walk around the place in robot form, he settled into a slow, sightseeing speed. Wheeljack was relieved he wasn't zipping all over the place, breaking traffic laws.

Inside his cab, Clarissa cheerfully answered all of Drift's many questions while Daniel watched despondently out the window. At first, Clarissa thought she knew it all, but then Drift heard someone walking by that wasn't speaking English. When he asked her how many languages existed on the planet Clarissa didn't have an answer. She tried to explain how Earth contained many different cultures and countries. When Drift asked for specific numbers and names, she couldn't give him those either. Her last resort was to inform him of Earth's internet and its rich well of information. He quieted down for a moment as he accessed it wirelessly and began soaking up the intelligence.

"So, that purple female I saw," Clarissa said after a long expanse of silence. "You seem to like her."

Daniel shook his head at his girlfriend's grin. She was a bit like this when she found out Arcee and Springer were sweet on each other.

"Blitzangel? Yes, I like her," Drift said innocently.

"Is she your girlfriend?"

Drift was quiet for a moment as he waited at a red light. "This English word, I'm not sure what it means."

"Are you two in a romantic relationship?" she clarified.

"No."

"Do you... want to be?"

"Clarissa," Daniel murmured behind his teeth. "It's not really our business."

"Oh, I'm just having fun, lighten up." She gave him a playful push on his shoulder.

"Are you two in a romantic relationship?" Drift asked.

Clarissa gave a sly look to her boyfriend. "You could say that. Though it took him forever to ask me out."

"Stranger matches exist, I'm sure," came the Cybertronian's droll response.

Daniel scowled at the dashboard.

"Oh, he's just teasing," Clarissa assured him, taking no offense. "And you, Mister," she said to the steering wheel. "Danny can be downright pleasant, caring even, when you get to know him better."

"How sweet, human romance."

"Now you," the girl insisted, not willing to drop the topic. "What's the story of you and this Blitzangel. You like her? Are you going to ask her to be yours?"

Drift grew quiet again. "It's... complicated."

Clarissa gasped in intrigue. "Let me guess, she's damaged? Or emotionally distant? Afraid of mechs?"

"Um, a little bit of all of the above, I think. I try to be careful with her and take it slow."

"That is so sweet!"

Daniel rolled his eyes again.

Up ahead, the casual stroll of the pedestrians was turning more into a frantic evacuation. They were fleeing in fear of something up ahead, spilling off the sidewalks and running in the road in their desperation to escape.

"Uh oh," Wheeljack said over their radio. "I'm picking up Decepticon signatures."

"Decepticons, huh?" Drift said as he slowed down. "I haven't seen me one of those for a while. What's the Earth protocol for engaging them?"

"While in the city, we need to get them away from the humans. Hopefully with minimal property damage," Wheeljack explained.

"Ah, damage control." Drift pulled to a stop and opened his doors. "Find yourselves a safe place to watch, you two." He transformed into robot mode as the teens climbed out. "Make sure you get a good view of me in action." He smiled at Clarissa as he took out the double swords from his hips.

Wheeljack transformed next to him. "There's a bit of a problem. It's the Constructicons. I'm calling for back up. I don't think the two of us can-"

Drift cut him off with a raised blade. "Maybe you Autobots can't. Just leave it to me."

The massive green vehicles were rumbling closer and the white neutral rushed off to face them.

"Well," Wheeljack said more to himself than the humans next to him. "This is going to be interesting." It certainly didn't stop him from calling for backup.

* * *

Blitzangel wandered the base, feeling rather itinerant. With the four new Autobots, she didn't have a room she could hide any longer unless she wanted to go back to her old closet again. But the flier in her couldn't stand those close, tiny walls. To her detriment, she also realized that she had currently ostracized herself from most Autobots of whom she felt the closest. The Ark was beginning to feel less and less like a welcoming place. Maybe she should worry about getting that escape pod repaired and get back into space as soon as possible. She never felt like she didn't belong up there.

Down one hall, Blitzangel turned her attention from her current conundrum to notice a specific sound drifting up from somewhere in the distance. She followed it to its source, the Autobot recreational area. Peering cautiously into the room, the sound was instantly clear and familiar. Music. Certain melodies and lyrics she felt like she hadn't heard for a lifetime. Especially with Drift's penchant for music strictly from the 80's and early 90's.

Sideswipe was the only one in the rec room, mopping the floor. Everyone else was probably at Autobot City, putting in their daily duty while the red mech was left to take his turn to clean. After all, the Ark needed daily upkeep as well. Part of that had been Blitzangel's job when she lived there. It was even more so when she was on the Nemesis. She frowned at that last thought.

The red Autobot didn't seem to notice the femme's presence at first. He was too busy dancing around to the music, swinging the mop as if it were his dance partner. He tipped the handle smoothly from hand to hand, spinning around it as he sang.

_'Cause baby,  
There ain't no mountain high enough  
Ain't no valley low enough  
Ain't no river wide enough  
To keep me from getting to you babe _

Even as he grew closer, Sideswipe gave no indication he was aware he was being watched. Not until he passed off the mop to the wall and grabbed Blitzangel's hand instead. He yanked her to him, securing her around the waist as he spun them both.

_My love is alive  
Way down in my heart  
Although we are miles apart  
If you ever need a helping hand  
I'll be there on the double  
As fast as I can _

The affect of the spinning on her equilibrium stabilizer made her a bit giddy. Likewise, she found it amusing to hear him sing.

"Did you pilfer some songs from my old playlist, Sideswipe?"

He grinned. "It is your old playlist. I pilfered all of it. Sing with me."

She looked a little uncomfortable. "I don't know about that..."

"Oh, come on, you would sing all the time here."

"You heard me?" And she thought she had been careful to sing mostly when no one else was around.

"Angel, everybody could hear you."

"Really?" she blurted, her voice higher than normal. In that brief moment she sounded exactly like her old self. "How?"

"We have our ways," he assured her with a cryptic smile. "Sing with me."

_Don't you know that  
There ain't no mountain high enough  
Ain't no valley low enough  
Ain't no river wide enough  
To keep me from getting to you _

Blitzangel joined in on the last of the 'Ain't no mountain high enough's', her voice soft.

Sideswipe guided her across the floor, enjoying himself. But the femme extricated herself from him when the song stopped before a new dance could begin.

The red Autobot unclasped a small compartment on his chest and pulled out a long, thin device. It was pretty much like a Cybertronian-sized iPod. Wheeljack had made it for her when he saw the pathetically rigged radio she put together herself.

"You took this from my room?" Blitzangel asked as he placed the device in her hands. She sounded somewhat offended.

Sideswipe's body language went from affable to apologetic. "It was so empty when you were gone. This music reminds me of you."

She turned the device over in her fingers. "Yeah, it reminds me of me, too."

Sideswipe gave her a hopeful look and produced a disc he also had on his person. Blitzangel recognized it instantly. Another article from her room, a disk that contained her home videos. The only footage she had of her parents. The last artifact of her human life.

Her temper flared when she saw it in his hand. "That is private."

"We didn't think you would be coming back," was his only excuse. "I think it got damaged in a fight I was in."

She snatched it from him. The disk was scratched and bent. "Damnit, Sideswipe! Was it damaged in OUR fight? Did you WATCH it?"

Regret was written all over the Autobot's face. "Sunstreaker is mad at you."

Blitzangel's temper was knocked for a loop at the sudden change in topic. Now she was having trouble finding a proper target for her anger. "I.. I don't care what or who he's mad at!"

"Yeah," Sideswipe continued as if it were still a casual conversation. "Sometimes he's wrong... and sometimes he's right."

The femme had the urge to pinch the bridge of her nose, a solely human gesture. She had forgotten what it was like to talk to Sideswipe. She didn't know if he had robot ADD or if he just chose not to adhere to the proper rules of conversation.

With her aggression railroaded by his mental meandering, Blitzangel's expression turned toward helpless. "What ... so what do you want me to do about it?"

The red Autobot moved closer. "I think you can put the disk..." He bent nearer to the small slit at the side of her chest armor. "right in there."

Curious, Blitzangel slid the disk into the slot. The machinery of her body accepted it and she felt her internal components altering to fit the format of the media device. At least it was back in her possession again-no matter its current physical state.

"Sunstreaker was wrong from before," Sideswipe reiterated. "But earlier he was right."

Blitzangel scrutinized him for a while, wishing he was more pithy like his brother. She appreciated a mech who got right to the point.

"So what you want from me?"

Sideswipe just shrugged. "Well _I_ think your new design is pretty," he added as an afterthought. Then, as an after, afterthought: "I think you need to sing with me some more."

She put the music player back into Sideswipe's open palm and closed his fingers around it. "I think I need to go." She tried not to notice the disappointment on his face as she left.

* * *

Shortly after the initial backup was sent to answer Wheeljack's Decepticon-related SOS in the city, the entire convoy rolled back toward the Ark. It was fast becoming the routine. If any of the few remaining Decepticons showed themselves, all the Autobots had to do was show up in force. That usually had whichever low-fueled Decepticons of the week had shown up turning tail. All Autobots appeared not to have seen much action; only the white vehicle with no discernible Earth model was banged up.

It apparently wasn't a base secret either. Blitzangel was in the med bay to greet them and she did not look happy.

"I can't believe you!" the femme barked at the damaged mech sitting before her. "You just barely got out of the med bay and what do you do with yourself? You go on some all out melee with a group of Decepticons! You have no sense at all! I outta rip off this arm and beat you with it!"

She slapped the damaged arm instead. It probably stung a little, but her words seemed to sting even worse as Drift flinched under the treatment.

"It wasn't on purpose-Ouch! I promise! I thought I could beat them."

Blitzangel paused and then yelled at him again. "You thought you could take on an entire gestalt team of Constructicons? Those guys are built like tanks!"

"I know that _now_," Drift muttered, holding his leaking side.

Blitzangel growled out a sound of frustration. "I just want to shake you sometimes."

"I would rather you didn't."

She slapped him again for good measure.

"Ow! Primus! You're so violent sometimes!" Drift protested.

There was a flash of back and white in the doorway. Before Blitzangel could turn her head to get a good look at it, it was already gone. She turned her attention back to Drift, slightly less irritated.  
"Yeah well, you have no one to blame but yourself this time. I've got something else I need to do while First Aid puts you back together."

"Can't you do it this time?" Drift whined. "I'm sick of being touched by mechs all day. I want a pretty doctor."

The harshness immediately returned to Blitzangel's tone. "No, I'm not going to do it for you! I'm not going to reward you for being this stupid! Now I really do need to go take care of something." Her voice dropped to a softer volume. "It's something I should have taken care of a while ago."

Drift heaved air out of his vents plaintively. "Is it going to take long?"

Blitzangel put her hands on her hips. He was acting like a child. "I don't know. It might take a long time. But this is something I really need to do, okay?"

Drift was silent.

"Don't pout."

"I'm not."

"I mean it."

"I'm not!"

But he was frowning, no matter what he said. Blitzangel leaned over and put her hand to his cheek. That touch immediately shaved off his edges.

"You're a big, strong mech. You'll be okay until I find you again."

Drift looked down and muttered something intelligible. Blitzangel took that as the last of his protest and kissed the top of his head before retreating out the door.

* * *

Prowl retired to a recharge berth directly after discovering that those returning to the med bay had not sustained any serious injuries. To say that he felt tired was an understatement. He was constantly plagued with a fatigue that sunk far deeper than just the physical. On an emotional scale, he felt stripped to the wire, even though he was extremely adept at hiding it. He had been pressing so hard for so long he didn't know how to stop and he didn't know how to heal the damage his spark had taken because of it. All he could do was try to relax in the silence of the coffin-like berth and stare at the lid.

His optics stayed focused on the metal interior for several minutes while he ordered his myriad thoughts for the day and put them away in their correct files. He had just begun his recharge cycle when someone disturbed his alone time by lifting the lid. Irritated at first for having the only solitude he could find interrupted, he soon forgot all protests when a smaller, purple figure began to climb into the berth with him.

Too shocked to speak, he lay there in silence as she slid her lithe body within what little space there was between him and the side of the container. Then she closed it again so no one could see who was inside.

"Hey," she said softly as if afraid to awake invisible sleepers around her. "I hope you don't mind me taking some of your time."

He didn't speak, but he maneuvered his arm behind her so she could slide closer to him. Blitzangel rested her cheek on his shoulder, not moving any closer than that. The two lay in silence.

"I wanted to tell you I'm sorry," she said after a while. "For yelling at you earlier, for the previous night, for everything I've said to you. I didn't mean any of it."

"Yes, you did." He vented some air. "And I do deserve it. You were right, I made you a promise and I did not keep my end."

"No," she whimpered into his shoulder. "I don't want to argue about it. It doesn't matter any more."

"I looked for you," Prowl insisted despite her pleas. "I did everything I could think of. All of my plans kept failing and I didn't know what else to do. But I never stopped searching, I kept trying to-"

"Stop!" Blitzangel cried as she attacked him, hugging him fiercely around the neck. "Stop, I don't care! I don't care if you didn't look at all. I just wanted to find you again. I wanted that more than anything else!"

She cried on his chest, a sound with bitterness to it. Prowl understood why. Her outburst the other night in Jazz's quarters had been the truth tucked deep in her heart. He was also sure this was as well. There was the breaking of pride to accept that one would gladly return to someone who had let them down so thoroughly.

He put his arm around the shaking femme's body, pulling her closer.

"But I did look," Prowl said softly. "And I would have kept looking until I found you, no matter how long it took, no matter how many failures slowed me down. I wasn't going to stop. You can always count on that above all else. Maybe I can't always succeed, but I don't stop trying, not when it comes to you."

By the time he was finished, he had pulled her close enough that his cheek brushed her forehead, his mouth near her audio. Blitzangel clung to him as if she had been craving this contact all these months. Prowl held her tightly against him, now understanding what Jazz had meant. There was something so assuring, healing for his spark, to have her in his arms and feel with his own senses that she was there with him, alive, even if she was still damaged on the inside. He rubbed his hands along the unfamiliar wings on her back and the protrusions of her helm and she slowly calmed. Her body settled against him as if the heat of his form was the only warmth she had, her head on his chest. Prowl kept his arm protectively around her, not finding any reason to move it.

"It's softer than I thought it would be," the femme whispered in the stillness.

"What is?" Prowl wasn't sure he had heard right.

"Your spark. It has a very soft, steady pulse. It's softer than I thought it would be."

Prowl let his head fall back, watching the bottom of the lid again. His free hand touched the smaller, feminine digits resting on his chest, black on stark white. Her dark hands were the same color they had been before.

"Why do you not wish to use your human name any more?" he asked.

The femme shifted slightly, but made no indication the question had offended her. "In your culture, it's not unheard of to get a new design and a new name to go with it."

"But it is not your culture," Prowl reminded gently.

"The human culture is not my culture either. Not anymore. And... I am not that person anymore, either," Blitzangel added with a sigh. "Granted, this new nickname certainly wasn't my idea, but I think I want it now. I can't be the person I was before. I have to grow, I have to be something more than I was or I'm not going to survive this."

"You have already survived it. The rest is just... living with the survival, which can sometimes be more difficult than the survival itself. But you are strong; you can do it. I know you probably won't need my help, but I am here for you if you have any use for me."

Blitzangel propped herself on an elbow so she could look him in the face. The sharp features were illuminated by the gentle glow of his blue optics. Silently they watched each other in the dim blues and greens.

"You're the only one who has never looked at me different, no matter how I looked or who I was." Even as Blitzangel said it, it was as if she were just realizing it herself as the words came out of her mouth.

Prowl reached out a white finger and ghosted it down the plane of her face. "You will always be who you are. No matter how you look on the outside, all I see is you."

Blitzangel snorted, then quickly stopped herself. "That was pretty corny."

Prowl tipped his head. "Was it? I can never tell."

"Oh? Have you been practicing your corn while I was gone?"

"Not on purpose, I assure you."

The femme was about to mention she thought he and Drift had been going to the same sappy dialogue class, but then kept it to herself. Instead she put her head back down on his shoulder and let her body enjoy the warmth radiating from his. Suddenly it felt like she had been in the cold for a long time.

"Can I stay here? Just a little longer? It feels safe."

A surge of protective instinct kicked in and Prowl took his turn to keep quiet when he felt the urge to demand what it was exactly that made her feel not safe within his base. Instead, his arm rested around her shoulders.

"Stay as long as you want."

* * *

Drift traipsed down an empty hall in the Ark. He knew what this land base really was: a downed spaceship. Though the design was unlike anything he had ever seen, the narrow hallways never lied about its true purpose. It had him missing his own ship and the freedom of the limitless ether. He was starting to wonder if they were ever going to make it back up there. His female companion seemed to be constantly distracted from too much of her past coming at her all at once. That was why Drift preferred always to look forward. It kept past preoccupations out of the way of what lay ahead.

"Hey, neutral," someone called to him.

Drift turned around. There was a predominantly blue Autobot standing in the corridor he had previously assumed to be empty. He was shorter than Drift, similar in design to the Autobot Prowl.

"Drift, right? I'm Smokescreen." He closed a door behind him. So that was where he had come from.

"Yeah?" Drift tipped his head casually, his noncommittal response offering further credence to his laid back facade. But underneath, he was ready, muscle cables tight. Whether surrounded by Autobots or alien life forms, he was always ready.

"A colleague of mine and I have been working on a few experiments." Smokescreen explained with a car salesman smile. "We were wondering if you would be so kind as to assist us."

Suspicion fell behind the neutral's yellow optics. "Assist you, how?"

"An extremely innocuous task, I assure you." Smokescreen placed a hand on Drift's back to guide him down the hall. They were approaching what appeared to be an artillery closet. He slid open the gaping door. "All I need for you to do is just go in that room alone for a few moments. That's all."


	15. Chapter 15: Dark Passenger Part 1

Rising Generations

Chapter Fifteen: Dark Passenger Part One

Tracks sauntered toward the med bay in no particular hurry. He wasn't sure why First Aid had called him down there. Maybe the blue Autobot was due for some sort of check up he was not aware of. When he arrived to report to the medical examiner, however, First Aid was nowhere to be seen. There was only a purple femme with a blowtorch.

"Have a seat." Blitzangel nodded professionally in the direction of the table. "Let's get this over with."

Tracks smirked at her. "Are you thinking the problem will be solved just like that?"

"On the outside anyway. Sit. I'm not taking no for an answer."

Tracks sat, though his expression conveyed that he still had half a processor to challenge her.

"This will hardly take any of your time and it won't hurt a bit," Blitzangel continued, inspecting his damaged optic and then the rest of him. Mostly he just needed a good paint job, nothing too technical.

"You'd better know how to use that thing," Tracks warned her, looking at the blowtorch in her hand.

"You'd be surprised what I know how to do."

She obviously didn't intend for that to have a double meaning, but Tracks was still amused by her statement.

"Learned some new things out there in the great, wide universe, did you?" He grinned.

"And then some." The retort was neutral. "Now lean back so I can fix your optic."

Tracks sighed by venting air and did was he was told. "If you must," he relented.

Blitzangel looked over him to inspect the damage. "You would at least want to look nice when you get transferred back to Cybertron, right? There are femmes up there now. You'll want to look your best so you can get yourself a girlfriend before they're all taken." She added in a lower, flatter voice. "Because they're certainly not going to take you on personality alone."

Tracks, disinterested, took no offense. "That's fine by me. Girlfriends are overrated."

Blitzangel didn't look up as she started welding the damage on his face. "What does that mean? You're more into guys?"

Tracks frowned. "I'm not into anything. I don't want any kind of significant other," he made quotation marks in the air, "to get in my way and tie me down. I have done just fine on my own and will continue to do just fine."

Blitzangel pulled back from her work and tipped her head. "Sounds a little lonely."

"I'll have you know it is completely socially acceptable to live one's entire lifetime on Cybertron without a sparkmate," Tracks informed her. "We're not like you organics. If you're not copulating around by the time you hit puberty, you think there's something seriously missing from your quality of life. Most of us find enough satisfaction with the relationships we have on a platonic level. Certainly not everyone on Cybertron feels that way, of course. But we can't all be Sunstreaker with his entourage of trollops."

"He just likes variety, I think," Blitzangel chuckled. "He gets bored with the same things too easily."

"That's exactly what it is!" Tracks agreed. He hadn't flinched or showed any sign of discomfort while his optic was being worked on. "And that's exactly what you are. Something different for him to amuse himself with. Maybe you'll keep his attentions longer than the others have."

"I'm quite sure Sunstreaker's lost his interest in me already." Blitzangel straightened and fetched a different tool.

Tracks snorted in disbelief. "What did he do? Try to put you in the friend zone?"

"More like the family zone."

Tracks sat up in surprise. "Really."

Blitzangel immediately pushed him back down so she could get back to work. "He was clearly not happy with my physical appearance or my decision to stay in this body for a while longer. So I guess you get your best friend back."

"Yes, well, he and I do share that shallow jackassery that you have so eloquently pointed out." The blue Autobot settled and was quiet for a moment. "And how do you feel about that?"

"For now, I hope it keeps him away from me. He's been so intense, I have a hard time handling him, even in small doses." Blitzangel then leaned on her elbows and looked thoughtful. "But I will admit, I'll miss him if I never get to talk to him again. I like his bluntness and his passion."

"But his kind isn't for you," Tracks said as she went back to molding the metal of his optic frame. He blindly waved a finger in her direction. "You're a one bot gal, I can see that now. You would be happier with a mate, the same one forever and ever. So boring."

"What I wouldn't give if my life were more boring," the femme muttered as she inspected her work, completely unoffended. She pulled back and fiddled around for some other tools. "Of course, I really would have been happy if I had found me a man and lived out my life as a human without all... this." She motioned to the room around her. "But, no. My life had to be overrun with robots."

"Why does the word robot always sound derogatory coming from you?" the mech accused her, fingering his newly molded optic. Blitzangel slapped his hand away so she could continue working. "You don't like us in that way?"

"Not in the happily ever after sense, no," she confirmed as she continued working.

"But you said you thought I was gorgeous when you saw me."

"I meant gorgeous like I find a sports car or a painting gorgeous. Not like I would find a man gorgeous."

"I see. You definitely are a conundrum. One I doubt I'll figure out anytime soon."

Blitzangel worked quietly for a while. "You know, my mother always told me to be open to the pull of the universe. Listen to where it wants you to go, she would tell me. But I was happier when I was human, without the pull and without direction. I could have been happy living without direction my entire life."

"So you're saying that you being here now is the pull of the universe," Tracks said. "Becoming one of us is kismet, your destiny."

Blitzangel slowly let out air from her vents. "I'm sure that's what my mother would say. She strongly believed everyone has a purpose and there was no nobler path than running to meet that purpose with open arms."

"But you don't," the blue Autobot surmised.

The femme turned away from him, clutching a tool in her hand. She was quiet for several moments before she spoke. It was clear from her voice she was fighting to keep the pain from showing. "If this... I don't understand why this was meant to happen to me. If fate is real, isn't doing what you were meant to do supposed to make you happy? How could I ever want this?" Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Sometimes it feels more like a nightmare." She rubbed at her optic band, which she seemed to do reflexively from time to time.

Tracks, ever ready to comment on anything, stayed silent this time. Blitzangel continued her repair work on him without further conversation. Forty-five minutes later, his new paint job was drying and Jazz walked into the room.

"Tracks," he greeted with surprise. "Looking good. It's about time you let First Aid-" He, too, paused when he saw it was not the resident medic who had summoned him to the med bay.

"And now it's your turn," Blitzangel said as she patted the tilted examining table.

"No more use putting it off," Tracks said as he started for the door. "I guess it's time we all started looking ahead instead of dwelling on the past."

"Is that so," Jazz said thoughtfully.

Tracks just smiled with a shrug as he left.

Jazz was once again invited to the examining table and he leaned back at the thirty degree angle while the purple femme inspected the large gash that had sported his hood for almost a year now.

Blitzangel fingered the edge of the nasty scar. "Want to tell me about this?"

Jazz scratched at it, a habit he had picked up in the past several months. "Got it during the first raid of the Nemesis. When we didn't find you, I guess... I didn't much see the point of getting it fixed when it didn't hurt."

Blitzangel was already working on removing the damaged hood from his chest. "Tracks told me it's Cybertron tradition to mourn the loss of the dead by leaving wounds unrepaired." Her expression turned offended when she saw the mess underneath. "Oh for crap's sake, Jazz!" All his inner workings were caked in the filth stirred up by driving around Earth's dusty roads. Cybertron's roadways weren't quite as bad, but Jazz had left himself uncleaned for a while.

The SIC managed to look uncharacteristically regretful for his actions as he lowered his gaze. "I guess there were just some times I wanted it to hurt. Maybe that's the reason we let ourselves sport those wounds."

Blitzangel kissed his forehead. "You need to take better care of yourself now. Don't let my hard work be for nothing. You're still one of my favorites, you know."

Jazz's usual grin quickly returned. "So when are you going to snuggle with _me_ in the recharge berth?"

She mirrored his smirk with one of her own. "Let's get you cleaned and repaired first before there are any negotiations about snuggling."

* * *

The sharp clang of steel on steel shot through the clean, spring air outside the volcano. There weren't any rooms within the Ark that had enough space to really move about in. Especially not how Drift liked to move. It was so much more fun when he had the entire outside to maneuver and add some flare to his sparring matches. So many boulders to bounce and spin from. Loose dirt to slide around in.

His opponent, a green mech called Springer, seemed to be enjoying himself as well. At first, the friendly sparring had begun as usual: a mere battle of skill, to see which one could overpower the other. But as the two skilled mechs began their dance, they found it far more fun to drag it out as an exhibition. The winner would not be he who merely drove the other to his knees, but also who had the fanciest sword and footwork.

As the display continued, more Autobots gathered around to watch while Drift and Springer seemed to be having a great time rebounding off of rocks, ducking each others' blades and each looking for opportunities to one-up the other. Prowl was one of the spectators, keeping his distance from the crowd, but still watching with sharp optics. His attention was all on Drift as he studied every move. Some of his fellow Autobots would no doubt make light of his cautious nature. But there were just some things that Prowl would always rather be overly thorough about than not thorough enough.

This was definitely one of them, this mystery mech who offered his friendly facade, but no other information as to his origins or his motives. Most of the other Autobots seemed to like him well enough and Prowl would be just as happy if everything were as it seemed. But prudence also warned him that there were more neutrals than not that were bitter over one faction or another. Or both. Prowl wanted to make sure no animosity from Drift's cryptic past was ever harbored toward his Autobots. Certainly not toward Blitzangel, who Prowl now considered under his watch again with her return to the Ark. Especially after the encounter he'd had with her the night before.

Her candidness and surprising warmth toward him galvanized Prowl into renewing his personal vows to protect her and help her find whatever it was that would someday make her happy and, hopefully, help to overshadow all the hell she had been through. The first order of Prowl's business was to study this mech who had too easily gained Blitzangel's favor and thoroughly satisfy himself that Drift was not any sort of threat to her or anyone else.

So far, all Prowl had seen in the impromptu sparring match was innocent posturing. Drift's considerable skills were a matter of concern. He would be quite a difficult opponent to beat if one were ever found at the opposite end of his sword. But thus far, any evidence insinuating that Drift would turn on anyone was next to nil. Even when Springer got the upper hand, Drift showed no evidence of either animosity or grudge. He was enjoying himself immensely and nothing but lighthearted sportsmanship reflected in his posture and expression. Still, there was something about his charisma that made Prowl frown. He couldn't put a finger on why it bothered him so.

In the end, Drift won the match. Springer made a stupid move, one of the worst ones a mech could make while in a duel: he looked at Arcee and momentarily forgot himself. Drift wasted not a second before disarming the slightly taller mech, swiping Springer's blade to the ground with a flick of his wrist. Then Drift's sword surged forward, right for Springer's spark.

There was a collective gasp as all Autobots in attendance were reminded that they were still entertaining a mech they did not fully trust. But Drift's sword halted inches from Springer's chest and then receded. He lowered his weapon with that friendly smile of his and offered Springer a hand. Laughter and comments bubbled from the crowd and Prowl ceased his silent vigil. There was nothing that needed his attention here.

"The kid is fast with a blade," Kup commented from beside the black and white Autobot. "I wonder if he would consider joining our faction?"

"We could always use another skilled soldier," Prowl replied, noncommittal and neutral.

"That we could," Kup rubbed his chin. "Though it always helps to know why he's not in a faction to begin with. He's obviously been trained. Magnus suggested he may have deserted at some point."

Prowl only made an unintelligible sound.

"What we need is to get that femme on board," Kup continued without noticing. "If we can get her to stay with the Autobots, no doubt he'll follow after her like a lovesick puppy. What do you think, Prowl? Sound like a plan?"

The SIC only frowned more deeply.

* * *

"This is the song," Clarissa was saying as she shuffled through the playlist on her iPod. It was plugged into Drift's hip while he patiently sat on the table next to her. "This is the one you need."

"Are you sure?" Drift asked. His tone was half hopeful, half dubious.

"Trust me, this song is a classic. No girl can resist The Cure's 'Friday I'm in Love'," Clarissa nodded with all the confidence befitting a teenage mind. She uploaded the song onto Drift's computer. "Wait until you two are alone, preferably on a starry night. Play this and ask her to dance and she will fall for you faster than you can catch her."

"Well, I'll at least give it a try," Drift responded. "It can't hurt."

"And then you come back and tell me all about it," Clarissa beamed. "I'm rooting for you."

This time, the human teen had not come out to the Ark with her boyfriend. She wanted a chance to meddle in the love lives of giant robots without Daniel raining on her parade. Secretly, she wanted some one-on-one time with the neutral, Drift. There was just something so cute about him. If she didn't already have a boyfriend, Clarissa thought with bemusement to herself, she just might be the kind of girl who could go for giant robots, if they were like this one. At the same time, she also wished him luck with this Blitzangel he seemed to like. If Clarissa played a hand in getting these two together she would be satisfied with that as well.

The two spent some time discussing Earth music and Drift even played the teen some of his collection from around the universe. He helped Clarissa format and download her favorites onto her iPod. She had some friends who would flip when she showed these to them.

After a while, Blitzangel herself poked her head into the room.

"Hey Drift, I wondered if you had time to-Oh, I didn't realize you were busy." It took her a moment to notice the human sitting next to him. Blitzangel immediately backed away. "I'll catch you when you have more time."

"Oh, we weren't really doing anything," Drift immediately said

"No, no, I was just leaving," Clarissa insisted as she jumped to her feet.

Drift smiled at Clarissa for a brief moment before turning his attention to Blitzangel. "I've got time. If you need me, I've got all the time in the world for you."

Clarissa melted a bit at his tone. If a guy said that to her she would be putty in his hands.

Blitzangel seemed less affected. "Great, I'd like to talk with you a while." She motioned for them to leave the room to discuss things elsewhere.

Clarissa gave him a double thumbs up in encouragement as he left the room to follow.

Blitzangel led them both out of the Ark, away from all of Red Alert's spies and cameras. It hadn't been as rainy lately, which was rare for Oregon. The sun felt good on their metal skin. Drift walked next to the femme, not close enough that he was in her personal space, but still close. His hand lingered to where hers swung by her side, but he didn't reach out to grab it. Yet, he wanted to.

Blitzangel pulled back her hands, bringing them up to fiddle with them as she often did when there was something on her processor. Drift waited for her to speak without pressing her.

"I want to talk about the shuttle," she told him.

"Okay, are we still going to get it?" Drift wondered.

She vented air a little. "I will help you if you still want to go after it."

"Well, why wouldn't I want to go after it? It's my shuttle."

The femme shrugged. "Well, for one, it's been floating out in space for several days now. It's going to be far more difficult to locate it. Not to mention, _if_ it can be located, it will have to be towed back here and who knows how long the repairs will take before you can use it again. I don't know if you remember all that those seekers did, but they trashed it. We're talking whole walls and floors melted away."

Drift watched the ground in thought as they walked in silence. She was right. They would be going after something that they might not even be able to find. On top of that, it was a floating junk heap now. It would take a whole lot of resources to put it back together to make it spaceworthy again. If he were out among the stars he probably would have been able to get the rust bucket to one of his favorite ports and find someone who owed him some favors to help pay for the repairs. Out here in this galaxy with its single inhabited planet, he only had the Autobots to turn to. Drift really wasn't too thrilled to continue to rely on the Autobots and cohabitate with them on this planet. They were nice enough, but being around them for so long was making him nervous.

On the other hand, however, what were his alternatives? He needed a ship. If not his old one, where else could he go? Before he followed that train of thought for too long, Drift also noticed something else. The 'we' in all their plans had disappeared from Blitzangel's vocabulary.

"You're not planning on coming with me." He made it sound like more of an accusation than a question.

Blitzangel fidgeted as she tried to come up with a definite answer. "I... I don't know. I don't think so. I feel... like I need to stay here." When Drift clearly frowned she added, "Even you said this place was good for me." She continued blabbering, guilt fueling her words. "But I haven't made a solid decision yet. I just... I'm just trying to do what's best, you know?"

Drift forced a small smile her way, though there was disappointment in his optics. "Yeah," he said quietly. "I know."

His smile hurt, more than she thought it would. She wished there were some middle ground to all of this but, as it usually was in life, middle ground was very difficult to find. However, it did remind her there was something else she wanted to talk to him about as well.

"I also wanted to let you know about a talk I had with Ultra Magnus," she confided.

"Oh?" Drift seemed disinterested at first. He was still dwelling on the other news he had received.

"He told me about you," the femme said quietly, as if apologizing for what she now knew. "You don't have to explain anything to me, but I thought I should let you know what I've been told."

"Which is...?" Drift was doubtful that the Autobot Commander had anything of interest to say.

"He said your name was Deadlock. He said you were part of a team of four assassins that worked for Megatron. He said no one could beat you and no one could stop you when Megatron gave you a target."

Drift actually halted in his tracks in surprise.

Blitzangel walked a few steps further so she wouldn't have to look at him. "Was that... true?" she asked without turning around.

"It is." Drift's voice was neutral.

"Ultra Magnus also said your team was just suddenly all dead one day. No one knows what happened to them. But... you're still here."

There was a growl in Drift's voice now. It was a very uncharacteristic sound. But Blitzangel was too distracted by her own emotions to catch it.

"You think I did it. You think I killed them all," he said lowly.

"No Drift, I would never think-" She was going to turn around to face him, but something sharp had already pierced her wing from behind. It continued to pierce her, the sharp blade slicing easily through all the exposed cables at her waist. Blitzangel dumbly looked down at the sword now extending through to the other side. The blade was thin and beautiful. It was the one Drift always wore on his back. The one she had never seen him use before.

She felt the warmth of Drift's body pressing against her back, his mouth bent to brush the back of her neck as he spoke.

"I'm afraid, my sweet, that you know too much," he whispered.

The blade slid inward toward her middle as if to cut her in half. Blitzangel felt it catch on her thick spinal strut with a sickening, scratching sensation that slithered over her entire body. It made the bile rise in her throat and a trail of energon dribble down the side of her mouth. Liquid poured freely from the wound, drenching her legs and the ground. Warnings peppered her vision as her systems began to systematically lose pressure and energy.

Drift's sword was pulled from her as Blitzangel lost the strength to stand and fell to her knees. She tried desperately to stay sitting up, her processor scrambling to make sense of what was going on. She couldn't see Drift, but she saw his shadow on the ground as he raised his blade high in the air, pointing the tip toward her back.

"And one more spark goes out," Drift said, his grin wide and vengeful.

He heaved the blade downward, but before it could take its victim, Drift felt something hit him. The collision was something akin to being hit with a freight train.

* * *

Ultra Magnus had been enjoying his morning, which was rare considering he had been spending it in the company of a human. While he had a difficult time relating to the small, organic species, he found it surprisingly easy to commune with one member in particular. Her name was Carly Witwicky. She was one of the board members and resident scientists of a company called Cyber Tech. It had been founded by Carly herself some odd Earth years ago and used to foster a marriage between Earth and Cybertronian technology for the benefit of the Earth population.

Ultra Magnus was listening to Carly explain the need to create such a company as this. Cyber Tech's contract with the Autobots was drafted so that any government or pharmaceutical companies could not lay claim to the Cybertronian technology and patent any products of this research for their own financial gain. Ultra Magnus found it quite intriguing how much Earth's government and these large companies could have withheld all the benefits Cyber Tech had created, reserving it for only the very wealthy and powerful. Carly was so passionate about the technology of Cybertron being for everyone that Ultra Magnus found her energy infectious and she was very refreshing to converse with.

Carly was standing at a scaffolding that only put her a little taller than the waist of the Autobot commander, but it still afforded Ultra Magnus less opportunity to stare at the ground to talk to her. He could survey all of Autobot City while they spoke and keep an optic on things. He noticed when Blitzangel and Drift exited the Ark and began to meander out into the open. From their posture he could ascertain that their topic of their discussion was a bit more serious than normal. His instincts told him he may want to keep tabs on the couple to see how their discussion panned out.

Carly was still chatting along at a brisk pace when Ultra Magnus saw the attack coming far before Blitzangel did. Her back was to Drift. She could not see him draw the sword on his back. Drift had not drawn that sword the entire time he had been on Earth. When he sparred, it was only his broadswords he used. That ornate sword on his back was an assassin's blade. There was only one reason to use it.

Before Drift had even stabbed the femme in the midsection, Ultra Magnus had already transformed and was racing toward them. He pressed his engine to the limit as he watched Blitzangel fall to her knees and Drift raise the dripping blade, poised for the kill shot to ram the blade through the back and out the chest. Drift didn't seem to even notice the barreling vehicle nearly three times his size coming at him, but Ultra Magnus still hit him with all the power he could muster.

The blade had already sliced its victim a few inches through the back before Drift was sent flying, the sword spinning out of his grasp and landing several yards in the opposite direction. Ultra Magnus transformed into root mode, not waiting for the white mech to recover before picking him up and slamming him into the nearest boulder several times until it cracked.

By then, the Ark was spilling Autobots from its mouth. Many had to restrain their base commander as they tried to figure out what exactly had happened.

* * *

Drift had a hard time recalling anything before he was shoved into a holding cell. His body was battered, cracked and dripping energon, not all of it his own. Damage warnings lit up his vision. The cell door was slammed in his face as he scrambled to his feet.

"Hey!" he barked as he rattled the door. "What's going on?"

Ultra Magnus loomed on the other side, his optics blazing with anger. "When I'm done checking on your victim, you had better be prepared to answer that question."

Drift stared at him. "Answer.. victim?" He gripped the bars tighter. "Where's Angel? Hey! Get back here and talk to me! Where's Angel? What happened? HEY!"

The base commander was already walking out the door.

* * *

There were too many bodies in the med bay, so many that it was hindering First Aid instead of helping him. To top it all off, no one was listening to his quiet voice which, even when he was shouting, he could not raise above the cacophony in the room. It took all his brothers to help clear the place enough so he could at least have some elbow room to attend to his patient.

Blitzangel was lying quietly on the examining table in shock, energon seeping out from several areas. So many voices had been demanding what had happened all at once. She couldn't remember their names and faces. She wasn't sure who had talked to her. Everything had occurred so quickly beyond her vision, she had no idea how to explain how she was now on this medical table, leaking fluids everywhere.

Almost every cord on her left side had been severed. First Aid was scrambling to attempt to put them back together while Wheeljack and Perceptor flitted around, aiding where they could. There was an Autobot loudly protesting at the blockade of Protectobots keeping him from the med bay. When a dazed Blitzangel glanced his way, her processor snapped onto his familiar face and began working again.

"Sunstreaker!"

"I'm coming!" The yellow Autobot rudely shoved an elbow into Groove's face. "Let me through, she wants me over there," he insisted when the femme called his name again.

First Aid nodded that it was alright and the Protectobots reluctantly let him through. Sunstreaker rushed the examining table, grabbing Blitzangel's hand which was sticky with the energon she'd gained from unconsciously pawing at her own wounds.

"I feel kind of... numb," Blitzangel said in an airy voice. She was drifting in and out again.

Sunstreaker gripped her hand tighter. "Just stay with me, okay? You'll be alright. I've got you."

He looked up at the three Autobots hovering over their patient. "She _will_ be okay, right?"

"She'll be fine," Wheeljack assured him. "She can't die from bleeding out or being stabbed in the chest. She doesn't have a spark."

"And we were extremely lucky Drift was not aware of that fact," Perceptor added.

Sunstreaker growled at the neutral's name. "I'm going to kill that fragger and let his spark drip all over the countryside until it snuffs out."

Blitzangel suddenly grabbed his arm with both hands. "No, it's not his fault," she pleaded. "Drift wouldn't do this!"

"The hell it's not his fault!" Sunstreaker roared. "Look what he did to you for Primus' sake! How can you defend him?"

"Please, don't go. Just stay here for a little while. Calm down."

The femme's plea only added fuel to Sunstreaker's temper. "Slagitall! You're just trying to keep me from giving that fragger what he deserves! Damn you! You think you can trick me into-"

He stopped when he saw the current state of the femme he was yelling at.

Her face was scrunched in anguish, trying to squelch the sob pressing at her throat. Normally, she would go find some private place to cry so no one would see her. But, rendered immobile with her torn body, she was forced to stay where she was. The arm she draped over her face was her only protection from her emotions and the rest of the world. It was doing her little good.

"Just when I thought everything was starting to get better," she choked, "it all falls apart again. I don't know what to do anymore."

Her free hand wasn't clutching Sunstreaker's arm anymore, as if she had given up hope on him as well. The yellow Autobot recovered it as he pulled up a seat next to her. He held her tiny hand in both of his, pressing it to his chin.

"It'll be okay, Angel," he told her in a quieter voice. "We're all still here for you. We'll figure this out and everything will be okay."

* * *

Ultra Magnus was only in the med bay long enough to get a status report from Perceptor on how bad Blitzangel's wounds were. She was indeed lucky she had no spark. This unnatural creation seemed to be more inextinguishable than the sturdiest of his troops. If all soldiers could be built without sparks, what a frightening development that would be.

Once satisfied that the femme was stable and getting all the medical attention and emotional support that she needed, Ultra Magnus returned to the holding cells. This place needed his attention far more than the medical bay did. He also had arrived just in time. Both Prowl and Jazz had surrounded Drift's cell and were giving him the third degree none too politely while the confused neutral sputtered at them.

None of Drift's answers seemed to satisfy the two seconds. Ultra Magnus felt a momentary twinge of sympathy for the neutral. He would hate to be on the receiving end of the duo's grilling even on his best day. At least Magnus had control over what happened on his own base as far as how prisoners were treated.

"Prowl. Jazz," he barked sharply at them. "Stand down."

Jazz instantly turned at the sound of his name. Prowl did so more slowly. His optics glowered like a predator, fangs deep in his prey and unwilling to give it up.

"Stand. Down," Ultra Magnus repeated with less force but more authority.

The two seconds finally backed up, allowing the base commander to approach Drift's cell. They were only satisfied with the fact that they were still allowed to stand witness as their commander questioned the prisoner himself.

Ultra Magnus peered through the bars at the neutral who stared at him with wide optics and fear. Drift's damage was mostly cosmetic, but he was still leaking fluids in a few places.

"Do you want to explain to me what happened?" the base commander asked in a calm voice.

"As I told your attack dogs," Drift said. "I don't know what happened. I don't remember anything. I remember walking around with Angel and then the next thing I know, you're bashing me against that rock like a lunatic. I don't remember anything else. Someone tell me what happened!"

All Ultra Magnus did was turn on his heel and march out of the brig, both seconds at his heels. Kup was standing at the doorway.

"These two are not allowed back in here without express permission from myself," Ultra Magnus ordered.

Kup looked at the two appalled seconds. "Whatever you say, Chief."

Ultra Magnus turned down the hall to return to the med bay. Jazz and Prowl were on his heels, immediately protesting being blacklisted.

"Ultra Magnus, I understand what you are doing," Prowl said. "But I assure you that neither of us will let our personal feelings get in the way of conducting this investigation."

"This is my base and any investigations conducted will be done so under my order," Ultra Magnus reminded. "You observed Drift today, Prowl?"

"I did for a few moments," Prowl admitted.

"Did he do anything that seemed off to you? Anything that raised any flags?"

"Not... that I can recall," he answered hesitantly.

"Get with Red Alert, cover anyone who had contact with the neutral today. Find out if they noticed anything unusual- about him or anyone else who has been in contact with him lately."

Both seconds stopped to look at him.

"You thinking some kind of virus made him go off the deep end?" Jazz demanded, not buying such an easy out. He wanted to string up the neutral as badly as Prowl did.

"I'm saying," the base commander clarified as he rounded on them. "If it's not a virus, then I want it ruled out completely. I certainly can't ignore the fact that Drift hasn't displayed even a nanosecond of violence or a temper since he landed here. Not to mention that if he were really out to kill anyone, he certainly isn't stupid enough to do it in broad daylight only a few yards from the base. Something isn't adding up and I want to start narrowing down the list of explanations as soon as possible."

Prowl nodded. It wasn't the task he would have given himself had he been in charge, but at least he had something to do to help get to the bottom of this. "Understood. I will report my findings as soon as I am finished."

As Prowl left to attend to the assignment given him, Ultra Magnus turned to Jazz. "I would prefer it if you kept watch over Blitzangel for me, at least until she gets out of the med bay Sunstreaker's with her right now and that mech is too much of a powder keg for my comfort."

Jazz chuckled, knowing full well that Sunstreaker's temper was all bluff and bluster when it came to those he considered friends and family. Blitzangel was just as safe with him as she was with anyone else. The emotional repercussions that came from being around him, however, were anyone's guess depending on the yellow Autobot's mood. Jazz agreed he himself was probably the better choice to stay with Blitzangel until she recovered.

He followed Ultra Magnus into the med bay, the city commander already dishing out orders the second he stepped into the door.

"After she's repaired physically she gets a full systems check and diagnosis," he told Wheeljack.  
Blitzangel, still a bloody mess around her midsection, struggled to sit up and protest.

"That's an order," the base commander added, pointing a finger directly at her. "If you don't like it we can either strap you down or put you in quarantine, but you are NOT leaving this bay until you have been given the green light from the medical staff. If this entire incident happened because Drift picked up something in space, I want to make doubly sure you didn't pick it up as well. I hold the safety of my base and my Autobots above your comfort."

The femme ceased her struggling in the face of that logic. There was also relief in her posture at the thought of finding an explanation for what happened that didn't vilify Drift's actions. She would submit for that.

"I'll cooperate," she told him. "If it helps Drift, I'll do what I can."

"You don't believe he did this on purpose," Ultra Magnus surmised.

"No." Blitzangel coughed up more energon and First Aid checked her internals to see where the leak was coming from. "If Drift wanted me dead, he had six months of us alone on his shuttle to do it any way he wanted. Not to mention the fact that all he has ever done since the day I met him is try to help me. I've never even seen him get angry before. I know you might not think this holds much water because I haven't known him that long, but I swear, this is not like him at all."

Ultra Magnus nodded. "We're looking into it." He turned and left the room.

Blitzangel turned her head toward Sunstreaker who was still sitting next to her and all but growling at her words. "It isn't like him," she insisted again.

Sunstreaker looked ready to give everyone a piece of his processor, but Jazz intervened.

"Why don't you let me take over for a while so you can go get some air, Sunstreaker?"

"And where's Prowl been during all of this? I hope he's giving that neutral the grilling of his life," the yellow Autobot shot back, ignoring the suggestion.

"Prowl is out running an investigation into what happened. I'm sure he could use the help. He's got plenty of bots to question."

Sunstreaker tipped his head. The idea appealed to him. "Yeah, I'll go get 'Swipe and some others and we'll see if Prowl needs any help." He squeezed Blitzangel's hand one more time before leaving his post. He and Jazz exchanged similar expressions as each acknowledged what kind of mess they were all currently wading in. Then Sunstreaker disappeared out the door.

Jazz took the yellow Autobot's seat and slid up closely to Blitzangel's bedside. "How you doing, Angel cakes? Think you're going to live?"

She gave him a fatigued smile then wiped another drip of energon from the side of her mouth. "I've been thinking about shutting down for a while. I need to be offline for a thorough diagnostic test anyway. I'll admit that snuggle you asked for earlier sounds pretty good. I don't think I can take any more of this right now."

Jazz rubbed her hand in both of his. "Sounds like a good idea. You look like you need some rest."

"And don't let anyone hurt Drift, please?" she entreated. "Something's wrong here, but it's not his fault. I can't be there to help him right now."

He smiled at her, though he didn't much feel like yielding to that request himself. "Prowl's already on it. He'll probably have this all cleared up by the time you get out. Don't worry about a thing."

It was impossible not to worry, but Blitzangel did feel a bit better knowing there were bots already working on finding answers. She gripped Jazz's hand tight before allowing herself to slip offline.

* * *

It was slightly short of 24 hours later when Blitzangel was brought back into consciousness by Perceptor and Wheeljack. First Aid was nowhere around. She wouldn't have been surprised if the poor medic had had enough of her by now. Before they let her go, the two scientists invited her to learn of their findings. Blitzangel found herself unable to turn down that invitation.

"So what did you find?" she asked as she took an offered seat in the back. "Anything... interesting?"

"Not as such, no," Perceptor explained as he scrolled through her results. "We scanned for any hidden viruses or spyware and came up negative. Your basic core programming seemed mostly solid as well. There were a few anomalies-hiccups if you will- that seemed to come and go and were impossible to track. But from all appearances, your systems are much healthier than when you first arrived here."

"Just as a human's body heals itself," Blitzangel said.

"It's not quite the same," Perceptor corrected. "The reason for your rapid system repair within these past few days versus the past several months you spent in space is because your body has been around so many healthy systems."

Blitzangel tipped her head, not understanding the science behind the inference.

"The Cybertronian health systems are not unlike your human immune systems," the scientist explained. "They are constantly working to keep the body healthy and to remove any unclean microbes. However, ours are different by virtue of the fact that our systems can actually glean assistance from those around them. Even though you may not be aware of it, all Cybertronian bodies are exchanging data wirelessly whenever they are close to each other. An unhealthy system can be reminded what a healthy system looks like by being in close proximity to one. There have even been instances where healers and medics prescribed close physical contact of a sick patient with a group of healthy bots to help reverse certain programming maladies."

Blitzangel thought back to the night before with Prowl. It had felt so good, so healing, to be near him, to feel his warmth and hear the rumble of his spark. She thought it was merely because she had missed him. But perhaps more than just his words and his patience had helped her feel better. That was Prowl. Always making her feel better, safe, just by being around. She quickly dropped the smile on her face when Wheeljack addressed her.

"See? No big deal at all. Makes you wonder why you fought so hard to keep us away."

Blitzangel just smiled and shrugged at him. They didn't understand what her fear was. So many times there had been those who had forced her offline, put their hands inside her systems and changed her without her permission. Her fear was being helpless to the whims of those who would do what they wished to her. It had taken her a while to remind herself she was now in the company of those who would not do that to her. It took time to get used to trusting others again.

"Anything else I need to know?" she asked.

"You're good for now," Wheeljack nodded. "Clean bill of health and everything."

Great. Now she was free to take care of business. After excusing herself from the inventors' company, Blitzangel headed directly to the Ark's holding cells. Hound was standing guard outside and she approached him without hesitation despite his obvious hesitance at the sight of her.

"I'm happy to see you're looking well," Hound said carefully.

"Hey," Blitzangel's voice was purposefully casual to coax him to relax. "I just barely woke up. What's been going on? Anything new I should know about?"

"Not a whole lot I can tell you. Prowl's been tracing every second backwards from the incident, trying to find out what happened. He's been interviewing everyone who had contact with Drift in the past 24 hours which has been... well, everyone."

"Yeah," she agreed. "Drift's kind of a social butterfly. He doesn't mind being chatty and I'm afraid I've been kind of pushing him to go find other things to keep himself occupied while I took care of some business." She paused. "Can I go in there and talk to him?"

Hound was immediately stiff again. "I don't think that's a good idea. Ultra Magnus gave orders that no Autobot is to come in without his permission."

Blitzangel's expression grew crafty. "Well, for one, I'm not an Autobot. Secondly, I can get him to talk to me and give me answers about what happened. I want to know just as badly as you guys do."

Hound pressed his mouth into a thin line as he thought it over. Then he put his hands on her shoulders and spoke in a serious tone. "Do not let him out. Promise me that."

Blitzangel raised her hand as if she were swearing on the bible. "I won't let him out. I'm only going to talk to him, I swear." Not that she had the keys to the cell anyway. But Hound was smart. He knew she had the tools to do it if she wanted to badly enough. His trust meant a lot to her. It reminded her again that she needed to continue to exercise her own trust in them and that she was safe with them.

Once satisfied, Hound glanced around for witnesses and then allowed her inside. This time, he stood halfway in the doorway so he could keep an optic on her, more for her safety than for any suspicions he had about her going back on her word.

The three other Decepticon prisoners they still had were kept in the back. Drift was the first open cell in the front, kept isolated from the Decepticons. The white mech had been sitting with his back against the far wall, knees up to his chest when he heard footsteps enter. Upon seeing who it was, Drift jumped to his feet and approached the bars of his cell door.

"Angel, thank Primus! No one would tell me what happened to you- if you were alright."

Blitzangel looked at the stasis cuffs on his wrists, designed to keep him from using his full strength. Then her attention was upon the horrible damage his body had endured. His armor was dented in several places and there was dried energon splattered about that was a day old.

"Drift, what did they do you?" she asked, horrified. "What happened?"

Drift gripped the bars. "I don't know! I don't know what happened! I must have done... something, but I don't know what and no one will tell me."

The femme leaned in, terrified and concerned. "You don't remember what you did?"

"No! Nothing! I remember talking to you and then that Autobot commander was suddenly beating the tar out of me. Then he threw me in here and started asking me all these questions. I don't know what's going on."

Blitzangel chewed on her lip as a hand rested on the cell door. She was only vaguely aware that Ultra Magnus had been on the scene. Her systems had lost so much power, after the initial attack she couldn't much say what happened either. Weren't they a fine pair together?

Drift's shackled hands lightly touched hers. "Angel," he said softly. "What did I do?"

Her voice sounded powerless as she automatically responded. She always had such a hard time not answering a direct question. "I think... you tried to kill me."

"What?" the white mech demanded.

"With that sword you keep on your back. It just... cut through everything so easily. I was on the ground so fast, I don't remember too much either."

Drift's optics were instantly all over her, checking for injuries. His processor instantly determined that the reason he hadn't seen her in the past 24 hours was that she had been in the repair bay the entire time. Repairing the damage he had done to her.

"Oh no, Angel. I am so, so sorry." There was no hiding the pain from his voice. There was a twinge of fear in there as well. "I don't know- I didn't do it on purpose." He backed away from her, hunched and hiding his face with his hands. "I don't know what's happening. I didn't mean to do it. I don't remember anything. I don't know what's going on."

Blitzangel leaned in, stretching her arm as far as it could through the bar so she could touch his shoulder. "I know, Drift, I know. I'm fine and I know it wasn't your fault. Everyone's trying to figure out what happened and we're going to fix this. In the meantime, I'm going to get someone out here to repair-"

Drift's hands shot through the bars and latched onto her neck. Blitzangel's words were choked out as he cut off the energy that traveled up to her processor. She stared him in the face. It was twisted in a hateful, but satisfied expression. His optics had darkened from yellow to red orange. Blitzangel tried to beg him to stop, but that grin on his face froze her words just as effectively as the hands around her throat. No, not Drift. He couldn't be capable of this. He wouldn't do this to her. Yet Ultra Magnus' words reverberated through her thoughts. Drift was a killer, an assassin, a murderer.

Large hands grabbed her from behind as a green foot kicked at Drift and sent him stumbling backwards, his hold on his prey broken. Hound wasted no time in putting his arms around the femme and hauling her out of there as fast as he could. Blitzangel struggled, mostly out of instinct at being held, but Hound refused to let her go. Her last glance at Drift was his optics, bright yellow again, and the fear and surprise on his familiar features.

Blitzangel was so in shock at what happened, she didn't even realize she had become an emotional, struggling mess until a new pair of arms wrapped around her and pressed her against a more familiar frame. Jazz. He didn't even say much to her aside from a few murmured words of comfort before whisking her away down the hall and into Prowl's office. Technically, it was both of their offices, but Jazz never used it and Prowl used it all the time.

Prowl raised his head from his reports when the two came in. Jazz deposited Blitzangel's trembling form into a chair and shut the door behind them.

"Hound just radioed in and told me what happened," Prowl said as he stood and walked around his desk. He knelt next to Blitzangel's chair and coaxed her hands from her face. Tracing her jaw with a single finger, he lifted it to get a good look at her neck to see if there was any damage. That same finger traveled down her throat, checking for any indentations. The stasis cuffs Drift was wearing rendered too weak to do any physical damage. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," Blitzangel confirmed in a shaky voice. "I'll be okay. I'm just confused. Scared for him. I don't know what's happening to him. I don't think he does either." She grabbed the hand touching her and held it close like a security blanket.

Jazz was impressed. It seemed that time spent in the recharge berth had been good for both of them. Blitzangel was allowing contact and being more open. Prowl's edges were softening and his stress levels were down lower than they had been for a while, even with the current crisis. Maybe now he would stop being such an uptight pain in the tailpipe.

"We're trying to figure it out," Prowl promised. "We're doing everything we can. But you can't go back in there again."

"I'm not, I'm not. I swear," the femme said firmly. "But Drift needs medical attention. He looks awful."

Prowl looked tired. It seemed he was almost going to lay his forehead on her shoulder until Jazz spoke.

"All the medical attention has been on you until we got you repaired. Drift was scheduled to go in next, but now we'll have to take some extra precautions to keep First Aid safe while he tries to look at him."

Prowl looked a bit annoyed that Jazz now had Blitzangel's attention, but he relinquished it and stood up. "We'll keep you in the loop. If we find anything, I'll let you know."

Angel's gaze was fixed on the two broadswords leaning against the wall. Prowl had probably brought them in for inspection and as evidence. "Where's Drift's other sword?"

Prowl glanced at the blades. "Other one?"

"The third one he keeps on his back. That was the one he um... got me with."

Prowl searched his memory files. It was easy to forget Drift kept that third one. He rarely had his back to anyone, a subtle tell that he was used to a rougher lifestyle than his colloquial veneer let on. He had also never been seen using the thinner blade the entire time he had been on Earth.

"With how hard Ultra Magnus blindsided him, I'm sure that thing went flying quite a ways," Jazz said. "I'll see if I can find somebody to go round it up. It's gotta be out there somewhere."

* * *

Blitzangel stayed with them in Prowl's office until she felt better. Their company was reassuring, but she could tell that, while they didn't mind being there for her, they were also anxious to get back to the task at hand, which would ultimately help her as well. When the femme felt stable enough to be on her own, she released them and left to wander the base by herself.

It was a directionless journey. There wasn't anyone else she wanted to talk to. There weren't many others she felt she could confide in. Especially when it came to her travel companion. Especially after what had happened. She wasn't going to find anyone to believe her that this entire incident wasn't Drift's fault. Prowl and Jazz probably didn't believe her either, they just wanted to be on her side and to help her.

Even so, Blitzangel also had to admit to herself that any more talking wouldn't help. She would still feel as helpless as before and she was done confiding in others for a while. She just wanted to sit in misery.

Going outside also seemed to be out of the question. It had started to rain, which was more characteristic of an Oregon spring than all the sun they had enjoyed lately. The femme wasn't in the mood to go fly around in the gray sky and the rolling thunder. It would just mess up her guidance equipment. Instead, she sat at the mouth of the Ark and watched the rain, feeling very useless. She leaned her back against the wall, the storm reflecting her gray mood within. What was she supposed to do now? What _could_ she do now? Without any idea what was going on and nowhere to go to get answers, she was helpless and hopeless and she hated that feeling. Yet in her personal despair, she still managed to sense that someone was looming behind her as if waiting for her to notice their presence.

She turned her head and found Bluestreak standing at a timid distance, as if afraid to come any closer.

"Hey," she said with a soft voice and weak smile.

"Hi, um..." Bluestreak flicked his door panels self-consciously, an adorable action, even for him. "I just wanted to see how you were doing."

She shrugged. "I'm hanging in there. Just... frustrated and confused... scared a little. I wish I knew what I should be doing. I feel really helpless right now." She pulled up her knees tightly to her chest.

Bluestreak inched a little bit closer to her, but still kept a safe distance. "Do you... want some company?"

"Yeah, I'd like that."

Bluestreak slowly, carefully lowered himself a few feet from her and sat down. Blitzangel gave him an indiscernible look, but it bordered on disappointment when she turned her face away from him.

Bluestreak felt compelled to say something, as he always did in uncomfortable silences. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

For a moment, Blitzangel hunched her shoulders as if she dare not ask for what she really wanted. Then she slowly turned to look at him again, her expression just as timid as his. "A hug, maybe?"

Bluestreak almost gawked. "Really?"

She made a valiant attempt at a smile, but she didn't have the strength to keep it up. "I could really use one right now."

The gray Autobot didn't even think about it, he was just suddenly next to her, putting an arm around Blitzangel's shoulder. She completely curled up against him, cheek on the side of his chest, taking the opportunity to hear his spark. Bluestreak's cheek found her forehead as he rubbed her arm.  
They sat there for a moment before Bluestreak felt the need to fill the silence again. "I'm sorry about the other day, how I was acting. It's just, when you lost your temper in Wheeljack's lab, it scared me."

Blitzangel had to think about it for a while. She had been wrapped up in her own world for so long, but she began to recall how Bluestreak refused to talk to her or even get close the last time she saw him. She had really gotten selfish lately.

"I started wondering if maybe the person I knew was completely gone and she wasn't ever coming back," Bluestreak continued. "And I was just standing with this angry, violent femme in this room and I didn't really know who she was. I didn't know what to do about it."

Blitzangel pressed closer. "I have trouble knowing what to do about it myself. But I had a long talk with your brother last night. It really helped me a lot."

"Wow, that's great. I bet it helped him, too." He didn't feel the need to express how difficult Prowl had found the whole situation. He had a feeling Blitzangel already knew.

"I hope so," the femme said quietly. She then realized just how much she had enjoyed Prowl's company that night. It was a pleasant feeling to have his undivided attention when it was so often distracted by myriad things all at once. She recalled how his engine had rumbled, just a little. Blitzangel wasn't sure what that indicated, but she liked how it sounded and felt. She mildly wondered if Bluestreak would make his engine rumble for her and then thought that might not be an appropriate request. For some reason, however, the thought made her chuckle to herself.

Bluestreak looked down when he felt the tremors of her laughter. "Feeling better?"

She leaned her head on his shoulder casually. "I am, actually. Thank you."

Then she heard it: the song of the wind chimes that had found their home at the Ark. The ones with the adage 'light shines brightest in the dark' engraved upon them. For a brief moment, Blitzangel flashed back to all the times as human she had looked to those words to get her through it all. She marveled at them now. It had been breezy every day since she had been here on Earth, but she didn't recall ever noticing the chimes before. Maybe she had not been ready to hear their message until now.

She stood and watched them for a moment, listening to their song. Bluestreak rose to join her.

"How are you feeling now?" he asked.

She turned toward him, smiling. "I'm good and... feeling like I'm going to see what I can do about all this."

"Good, well let me know if you need any help."

The femme hugged him. "I will." She took off into the Ark with purpose in her stride.

* * *

Red Alert looked up from his game when he felt an extra presence walk into the room. He wasn't exactly in a private place, but it was currently an unused meeting room so there should have been no reason why anyone would be coming in. Especially during one of his few and far between breaks from the surveillance room. Certainly Kup was plenty capable enough that he didn't require Red Alert for anything while he was gone.

The young red and white Autobot hardly attempted to hide his annoyance at being disturbed when the femme walked in.

"Hello, Red Alert," Blitzangel greeted. "I think this is the first time I've seen you since I've been here."

"Blitzangel," Red Alert responded neutrally as he took his turn at his game. It was a high tech version of chess, to put it simply. Red Alert moved his pieces around with a data pad he had sitting on the table. The holographic board before him would reflect where he placed what.

He wasn't playing alone. A girl who appeared to be barely in her 20's stood on another data pad across the table, playing her own side by stepping on the squares. She had short dark hair and looked up at the femme with big, blue eyes.

Mercedes, known to the public at large as Sadie Lakes, teen pop star, had experienced a few run-ins with Cybertronians in her life. She'd developed a friendship with Red Alert in particular. Unfortunately, they had very little free time to spend together. Mercedes was on the road touring as a part of her career relaunch more weeks out of the year than not. Red Alert insisted that she text him at every new town and keep him updated, but it was still nice to be at home and come visit him face to face.

Neither was happy at having their rare alone time interrupted.

"Wow, there's sure a lot of... people around here these days," the femme said as she looked at Mercedes. It seemed so clichéd and Cybertronian to use the word 'human'. Mercedes wasn't the same girl that was with Drift earlier. How many people ran around the base whenever they pleased?

"Authorized Earth personnel were _always_ welcome on this base. You were the reason we had to make that exception," Red Alert informed her.

Blitzangel wisely chose not to get into it with him about who decided to do what for whose own good. She had come with a mission and she needed his help. "I'd like a look at all the security footage you have of Drift within the past few days."

Red Alert was uninterested. "I gave it all to Prowl. Report to him if you want to get involved with the investigation, though I would advise against it since you are personally involved."

"Involved in what kind of investigation?" Mercedes asked, intrigued.

Red Alert gave her a look that insisted she stay out of it.

"I'm sure you have copies," Blitzangel pressed. "Prowl's researching every second from the incident on backwards, trying to figure out what happened. But it's been 24 hours. He's either missed it, which we both know is rather unlikely, or it's way further back than what he's looking at. I just want a glance at it, but if I'm wrong, I won't have gotten in his way or slowed him down any."

"I'm busy," Red Alert said flatly.

"Please, Red." She knelt next to his armrest to entreat him. "I need your help. I need something to do, some way to feel like I'm helping or I'm going to go insane. You can understand that."

The security director hardly appeared to be swayed.

"Oh, help her, Red!' Mercedes barked. "You're being a big, crabby meanie." She was starting to take interest in this femme named Blitzangel. She thought Arcee was the only female on the base. And this one actually seemed to know her beloved Red Alert. Now Mercedes wanted to know more about her. Especially why Red Alert was not all that eager to be of assistance.

"But I thought you wanted this to be our time," the mech insisted to his human friend.

"We're just playing this game," Mercedes argued. "We weren't even talking. We can find something else to do and still have 'our time.'"

Red Alert chuffed some air as he pushed his chair out. "Alright. Here." He picked up his data pad and saved the game in case they wanted to finish it later. Then he scrolled around in his files until he found the video feed that patched together of all of Drift's activities since his landing on Earth. "It's played backward, per Prowl's request."

"That works just fine," Blitzangel said as she took the data pad from him and fast forwarded through the film. Most of Drift's time, when he wasn't strapped to a medical table, had been spent with her. But Prowl hadn't even gotten to her yet for an interview. That meant she should be skipping at least the past several hours, if not the whole day. The time stamp indicated she was now going into the previous night. The night she spent with Prowl. She had no idea what Drift had done with himself to pass that time.

Most of that night seemed to have been spent with Drift nosing around the different rooms and making small talk with any Autobots milling about. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, though she was wondering if maybe she should stop watching it on fast forward. Maybe she was missing the important stuff. But then, something jumped out at her. Something that made her frown. She paused the file.

"If you give me some time, I can make you a copy so you're not taking my data pad," Red Alert was saying. "Then you can stare at it all you want-"

Blitzangel cut him off by sticking the data pad into his face. "Tell me where I can find this idiot."

Red Alert leaned in to see. The video was paused with Drift speaking to Smokescreen right outside a certain utility closet. 


	16. Chapter 16: Dark Passenger Part 2

Author's Note: As always, super thanks to my beta. (I don't know if you want me to use your name, but you know how awesome you are.) She always is so great about putting her life aside for me. And thanks everyone who has been supporting me through this massive story. I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday season and I hope to keep bringing you great chapters (within a reasonable amount of time) in 2012!

Rising Generations

Chapter 16: Dark Passenger Part 2

The room was hardly more than a closet. There was just barely enough space to hold a table, a few monitors, and two mechs. A few empty energon cubes lay scattered on the tabletops and the floor. The place screamed "boys' hangout."

Even more empty cubes clattered to the ground when Blitzangel kicked open the door. The two Autobots inside almost fell off their chairs in surprise.

"You!" She barked at the blue mech closest to her, "I should have guessed all along! This is your fault! And you," her attention shifted from Smokescreen to Trailbreaker. "Do I even want to know why you're helping him?"

Trailbreaker shrugged nonchalantly. "It was interesting. It gives me something to do around here."

Blitzangel zeroed in on Smokescreen again. "What did you do to him?"

The blue mech appeared mildly annoyed. "I'm assuming you mean the rogue we have in our holding cells?"

"Yes." Blitzangel leaned in closer. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. I did absolutely nothing to him."

"Is that what you'll tell Prowl when I show him the security feed from last night?"

Smokescreen grinned. That maddening grin that made you want to punch him for taking pleasure from your frustration. "Prowl's already been through here. He's retraced every second since that neutral stumbled face-first onto Earth soil. He didn't see anything out of the ordinary so there should be no reason for you to be here."

The power suddenly went out in the room.

"Well, that's odd," Smokescreen commented.

A few seconds later, the lights came back on.

Blitzangel didn't miss a beat as she grabbed Smokescreen, lifting him off his chair with more strength than she looked like she could possess. "Show me what you did."

Trailbreaker calmly stood up. "I can show you."

He led her back to the end of the hall where the empty artillery closet was. It was pretty much the same as Blitzangel remembered it. Even the sloppy words painted on the wall in bright colors were still there. The only additions were a few cameras and monitoring devices that sent their findings toward the much smaller room in which the two Autobots had been lounging. Smokescreen followed them in, frowning to himself. Blitzangel took private joy in his irritation.

"We invited the neutral - Drift - to step in here for a bit," Trailbreaker explained. "We've been getting a spike in activity ever since the two of you landed here. We were pretty sure it was because of your presence, since it seemed to become active whenever you were around. Smokescreen, however, wanted to rule out Drift as being any kind of factor before we moved forward."

"I can't believe you're still playing around in this place," the femme huffed in Smokescreen's direction. "And he just walked right in for you?"

"We told him it was for the sake of science," Smokescreen said, arms folded over his chest. "I'm sorry to report that even after we left him in that room for a full five minutes, nothing happened. He eventually became bored and left on his own."

"Nothing happened?" Blitzangel clarified.

"Even less than nothing." Smokescreen sounded disappointed. "Not a single blip on any of our instruments. In fact, everything's been dead since. It's like he jinxed the whole operation. We've been discussing running tests to see if he sabotaged our equipment somehow."

"Exactly," Trailbreaker added. "In fact, it's like there's nothing left in here at all since Drift came and went."

Blitzangel frowned. "Get out."

Trailbreaker was offended at her attitude after being so helpful. "Now just because we-"

"No, seriously, get out of the room. Let's see what happens with just me in here."

Smokescreen's optics lit right up. Nothing brightened his day more than getting what he wanted. After persuading her companion to spend time in that room, he knew it was only a matter of time until his main quarry came sniffing around. As luck would have it, he didn't even have to try to lure her into staying this time. Smokescreen happily bounded off to check his instruments while Trailbreaker gave the femme a curious look before following Smokescreen and closing the door behind him.

Once alone, Blitzangel got her bearings in the quiet room. She looked at the paint on the walls, put there by herself. Glancing at the writings, she remembered what she had heard a year before, back when she was still too human to understand what they meant. Too human. Blitzangel sighed. She would never be too human again.

Standing in the stillness, she waited for anything, any indication she was not alone in the room. Nothing. No feeling of someone watching her. No tingling in her system. In her new body, her wing tips and the sharp angles on her helm were particularly sensitive to energy fluctuations. But everything came up completely zero, exactly like the rest of Smokescreen's equipment. Blitzangel left without any further comment to the two mechs watching her on the monitor.

* * *

Perceptor was in the middle of explaining something- complicated, no doubt- when Blitzangel walked into the lab. Wheeljack paused when the other scientist's words froze in his throat and looked behind him to see who was in the doorway.

"Blitzangel," the gray and white mech greeted her. "Anything I can do for you?"

She took a seat at the table as if she were one of the boys. "I have a very basic question for you two. Let's say there's a cube of energon sitting in an empty room and has been in there for quite some time. Then, someone comes into that room. He stays for five minutes, then leaves. After he has left, that energon cube is gone. Explain to me what happened."

Wheeljack and Perceptor looked at each other before the former answered. "The bot who was in there... took the cube with him."

Blitzangel jabbed a finger in his face. "Exactly!" She sat back. "The question is why. Why, when so many others have come and gone in that room and the cube never went with anyone else?"

"Uh, they weren't hungry?"

Blitzangel frowned a little at Wheeljack. Her hypothetical scenario was no longer relevant to the actual scenario.

"You're talking about possession," Smokescreen said as he stepped into the room, Trailbreaker behind him. "The possession of a body with another's spark."

"Yes," Angel admitted, a bit annoyed that she was followed. Then she turned to the red scientist. "That's why I need your help, Perceptor. You know more about sparks than anyone."

"I also know that it's impossible for two sparks to inhabit one body," Perceptor responded authoritatively. "One would either wipe out the other in order to gain control of the host body or the system itself would go into complete meltdown."

"She's not talking about two physical sparks," Smokescreen cut in. "We're talking about the consciousness left by an extinguished spark."

"Drift was in Smokescreen's favorite empty room last night. Whatever was in there was no longer there after he left," Blitzangel offered.

"If there was anything in there in the first place," Perceptor insisted. "What you are proposing is still preposterous. The consciousness of an extinguished spark is pulled directly into the Matrix like a magnet. It does not linger. It doesn't have the power to linger."

"Well, there have been some questionable cases..." Wheeljack started to say, but Perceptor wasn't done speaking.

"Not to mention there are several other explanations as to what is going on that you haven't even considered yet. Allow me to enumerate the possibilities." He counted off on his fingers. "It could be a virus he picked up in space. Or merely the long term exposure to space or the atmosphere and elements of alien planets. It could be the elements of _this_ planet. The highly oxygenated atmosphere of Earth deteriorates metals faster than most others I've seen. Not to mention its unique magnetic and gravitational pull.

"Processor deterioration due to some kind of exposure-especially to a bot who has been exposed to so much- is the most logical solution. Followed in probability by some sort of technology virus brought on by lack of proper boosters and firewalls he would get if he spent more time on Cybertron."

"Perceptor, you have to at least admit there was some kind of energy anomaly going on in that artillery closet," Wheeljack insisted. "We've both seen the results with our own eyes. Similar occurrences have also been documented on Cybertron."

"Fine," he admitted. "An energy anomaly wreaking havoc on his programming, causing him to become more paranoid or violent is worth consideration. It is lower on the list of probable causes, but not unfeasible. But a cognizant energy controlling his body is even more unlikely."

"So the first thing to do before you'll believe me is rule out the more likely candidates," Blitzangel concluded.

"Or prove that they are the cause," Perceptor countered.

She frowned at him.

"It could also be a botched personality reformat," Red Alert said. No one had noticed the shorter Autobot had stepped into the room. "At least that's Ultra Magnus' theory. The process didn't take and the old personality is coming back."

"That's assuming he received one," Blitzangel quickly defended. "It IS possible this is his original personality. Which, I think, better explains why he left his team in the first place."

"His _Decepticon_ team," Smokescreen surmised.

Trailbreaker cursed in Cybertronian. "There goes my 30 creds."

"I'll notify everyone in the betting pool," Smokescreen said as he pulled up his data pad to do some calculations.

Blitzangel wanted to grouch about Smokescreen's side activities, but there were more pressing matters she needed to focus on. More importantly, she needed to sway Red Alert, who obviously had the ear of Ultra Magnus, to her side.

"Drift left the Decepticons willingly. That's why he doesn't go back to Cybertron."

"That's what he told you?" Red Alert asked.

"Yes," she insisted. "Even Ultra Magnus told me he trusted him."

"That was before he started to display random bouts of murderous intent. Of which, I might add, have only been directed at you."

"Which makes no sense because I've been living with him alone for six months with no problems."

"Do you remember what you were talking about before he attacked you outside?"

Blitzangel paused as she tried to think. After being stabbed, her recollection was fuzzy since her systems were failing from the damage. Before, however, her computer brain recorded everything perfectly.

"At first, we were talking about his shuttle and the different options he had for retrieval. Then...I told him the same information Ultra Magnus told me. About how he used to be."

"And what did he say to you?" Perceptor pressed her.

Blitzangel paused, as if the words she were about to say were going to taste terrible. "He stabbed me and said I knew too much. But it didn't really sound like him," she quickly insisted. "It was almost as if someone else was using his body to talk to me."

The general consensus from the group of Autobots seemed disinclined to be swayed by that last argument.

"This- it isn't the way he is," Blitzangel argued weakly. "Something's wrong with him."

"Or he just found himself surrounded by Autobots with his cover blown," Trailbreaker cut in. "That's another probability: that the whole thing before was an act and these are his true colors."  
Smokescreen nodded. "Admit it, Doll, he didn't know you were in cahoots with us Autobots until you both landed here. That could be the reason why he's never gone after you before."

"Either way, they're prepping the med bay to accommodate Drift for the maximum safety of everyone involved," Red Alert put in before another argument could break out. "You may continue your speculations once we have the results of his tests. In the meantime, I need the two of you," he nodded to Wheeljack and Perceptor, "to investigate our current power problem."

"Which power problem is that?" Wheeljack wondered.

The lights went out again, as they had done several minutes before. Only a few independently charged gadgets glowed in the darkness.

"That power problem," Red Alert confirmed. The lights came on again. "I need your help to find the source. We must have a damaged wire somewhere."

"Somewhere covers a whole lot of area," Wheeljack said.

"Exactly why I need the help."

"So why not radio us?" Perceptor pointed out. "Why come all the way down here?"

Red Alert just frowned as he glanced at the human on his shoulder and thought about what had transpired a few minutes earlier.

_"Come on Red, we should go see what we can do to help," Mercedes insisted after Red Alert had explained the situation about Drift to her a bit better. "That's your job, isn't it? Helping people?"_

_"My job is to keep everyone safe," Red Alert insisted._

_"Come on! This is your chance to help a pretty lady in distress. Don't you want to be the hero? Huh, huh?" the human ribbed at him. _

_"That is not the reason I do this job. And I serve everyone best from my station right here, if you don't mind."_

_Mercedes began strumming her guitar haphazardly. _

_"This is the story of Red Alert." She sang loud, not even bothering to find a good pitch for her impromptu concert. "He doesn't do anything for anyone! He just sits at his station all day. He doesn't have time to help you! When the bad guys come around, yeah. Red Alert sees them but he doesn't come to help-"_

_"Fine!" He cut her off as he jumped from his chair. "I'll do it!"  
_  
"I came to see if I could offer any assistance with the current situation," Red Alert explained with a glance to Mercedes. "Although Ultra Magnus has issued the power problem top priority for the moment. So for now, I just need someone to watch Mercedes while we deal with this problem."

Red Alert gathered her into his hands and Smokescreen eagerly lit up, offering his palms in a 'gimme' fashion. Red Alert made a big show of passing him up to plant Mercedes on the table next to Blitzangel.

"While I'm gone, the four of you can brainstorm exactly what I can help you with. When we're done fixing this power problem, you can tell me what you would like me to do." He nodded to the two remaining mechs, the femme and the human. However, he didn't look too convinced there was anything he could really do to help.

Blitzangel scowled at their retreating backs as Red Alert and the scientists left. It was still going to take a whole lot of finagling to get them to listen to her.

"Don't worry about Red Alert," Mercedes informed the purple femme. "I can get him to do anything I want."

Blitzangel vented air as she sat on a stool. Red Alert wasn't the main mech she needed in her corner. It was Perceptor. But alas, the only Autobot that was fully on base with her theory was Smokescreen. Even Trailbreaker seemed more along for the ride than a true believer. Now that was a depressing thought.

She turned to the blue Autobot. "I can't believe I'm saying this, but-"

"But you need my help if you want to gather enough evidence to get our scientific department on board," Smokescreen finished for her with a grin. "You need someone who can get in close to the neutral since he's out of bounds for you." His smugness was irritating.

"Want me to help, too?" Trailbreaker offered.

Smokescreen didn't even let Angel answer. He was already on the trail and he was itching to get knee deep into this mystery. "You stay here for now, Trailbreaker. Too many Autobots sniffing around may raise some flags." A certain black and white flag was foremost on his processor. This had to remain low-key and very, very sneaky. While Smokescreen was grateful to Trailbreaker for being his spark hunting partner in all his shenanigans, the bulkier Autobot had no talent for secrecy or subterfuge.

"I'll call you if I need anything."

"You got it." Trailbreaker gave a mock salute.

The power flickered off again, just for a brief second. But when it came back on, Smokescreen was gone.

* * *

Cliffjumper wasn't sure why, but he was feeling itchy. Maybe it was the power outages, even though Ultra Magnus sent a message to all personnel that it was being looked into. Maybe it was the red Autobot's current assignment. He had done guard duty countless times before, even guarding prisoners like these. The Decepticon coneheads had been there for a while with no problems. Cliffjumper had guarded them before. But there was something about watching over the neutral that put him on edge. There was a prickle of tension in his diodes when he turned his back on that particular prisoner, so Cliffjumper kept his back to the door frame and one optic inside the holding cell room and the other on the hallway.

It made him feel silly. Drift wasn't even looking at him. He had sat down, knees to his chest in a corner, his body still leaking fluids here and there. If he hadn't attacked a femme from behind, Cliffjumper may have almost felt sorry for him. That was probably just his cover. Cliffjumper was no fool. That neutral Drift was dangerous, he knew it just by looking at him. He would be slagged if he were ever caught with his back to the white mech.

Smokescreen rounded the corner and started coming up the corridor. Cliffjumper sharpened at attention, pretending he had not felt unsettled.

"I'm here to relieve you," the blue Autobot said as he approached.

"You sure?" Cliffjumper responded. "I was told I'd be watching the neutral until they took him in to the med bay."

"I was just there. I already know the protocol for bringing him in so I said I'd do it. Don't worry about it."

Cliffjumper hesitated.

"This was Prowl's request," Smokescreen lied. "He sent me out here. Do you want to ask him about it?"

He watched watched Cliffjumper mull over his options. Few enjoyed talking to Prowl, especially when it was to question his orders. Which was why the Autobot second-in-command was very used to being followed without any backtalk. Primus bless his little brother.

"I guess everything is well in hand then," Cliffjumper relented, secretly happy to be out of there. "Tell Prowl I'll be happy to help if he needs it. Just radio me."

Smokescreen waved him off, waiting until the smaller red Autobot was completely out of sight before sliding through the doorway to where all the holding cells were stored. Drift's cell was the closest. Smokescreen moseyed on over to it and rapped on the bars.

"Hey there, Snowflake."

"Snowflake?" Drift demanded as he raised his head. He frowned and tensed at the unfamiliar Autobot.

"How you doing? My name's Smokescreen."

Drift didn't seem eager to have a conversation. He eyed the blue Autobot suspiciously. "I already told your base commander everything I remember. My story isn't going to change, no matter how many different interrogators he sends. You go back and tell him that."

Smokescreen leaned casually against the bars. "Nah, Ultra Magnus didn't send me. It was that pretty little purple jet you fancy. She wanted me to check on you."

"Angel?" All Drift's suspicions disappeared as he pulled himself to his feet. "Is she okay? How is she doing?"

"She's fine. Worried about you, mostly. She sent me here to look into your case a bit. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?"

"Uh, I guess not. But I really did tell Ultra Magnus everything. I don't have any different answers for you."

Smokescreen nodded in understanding. "Let me just try a few unconventional type questions and we'll see how those go, okay?"

"Okay..."

"Now you say you don't remember anything of the attack? Like a blackout or memory glitch?"

"Nothing," Drift confirmed. "It was like time jumped from one point to the other."

"Has that happened before or since?"

"No- well- there was that one other time in the holding cells when Angel tried to talk to me-"

"Ah, yes. Your aggression seems to be triggered by her."

Smokescreen was grinning and Drift didn't quite care for his glee at the situation.

"Have you noticed any sort of strange occurrences in your personality program?" Smokescreen then asked. "Like emotional changes ... getting angry for no reason? Having thoughts that aren't your own?"

Drift narrowed his optics at him. "You mean like someone controlling me remotely?"

"Mmm... more like someone else inside of you."

The neutral balked at the ridiculous idea. "Inside me? Who?"

Smokescreen stared hard at him. "Maybe someone who doesn't like the type of things you've been talking about lately. Someone who's worried we're going to find out who he is."

The power went out again. Smokescreen reflexively glanced toward the doorway as if expecting to find the source standing there before him. Behind him, he heard a metallic click of the cell door and Drift's voice.

"I think you might be onto something."

* * *

"So what's the deal with this Drift guy?" Mercedes was saying after Smokescreen left. "Red Alert says he's bad news and it if had been up to him, he couldn't have thrown that guy in the brig fast enough and then none of this would have happened."

"Drift wouldn't hurt anyone, no matter what Red Alert says. No matter what anyone says," Blitzangel defended. "Whatever is happening to him isn't his fault. He's not faking it." That last statement was thrown at Trailbreaker who raised his hands in surrender.

"Well, all I know is that Red Alert was pissed off you got hurt," Mercedes countered.

"Aww..." The femme's prickles wilted a little under that statement.

"I know, I was a little jealous. I saw a lot of Autobots grinding their gears over what happened. You're strangely popular for someone who's only been here for a few days."

"She's female," Trailbreaker put in before Mercedes had time to get suspicious. "A femme gets hurt in a base full of mechs that are supposed to keep her safe and it gets up in everyone's grill."

"Oh yeah, Red tried to explain that to me once," the human nodded. "It was the last time I came to visit. Arcee got her knee damaged during a Decepticon scuffle and there were Autobots tripping all over themselves to help her. Even Red Alert was getting all sappy around her while he growled at First Aid that he better make sure he did a good job. Poor Arcee just wanted everyone to back off.

"When I asked Red Alert what was going on, he told me about how all the females -femmes- were getting killed off everywhere. Now there's not a whole lot of them left and even for a while, everyone thought they were wiped out. Now that they're back again, all the males aren't used to these pretty, daintier versions of themselves and they just get all... wibbly over them."

"Is that how it is?" Blitzangel wondered.

"He called them 'Cybertron's precious treasures,'" Mercedes confirmed with a bit of a sardonic tone. "Red Alert. Said the phrase 'precious treasure.' To me."

"Huh. I didn't know that," Blitzangel said. Then quickly caught herself. "I mean... from like a mech's point of view."

"So you and Drift, you two like an item then?"

"What?" Blitzangel balked. "No, it's not like that."

"Are you sure?" Trailbreaker put in.

She frowned at him. "What? You got a betting pool on that, too?"

"I'm... not going to say."

"Well, you know I hear you two pretty much lived together out in space," Mercedes cut in. "Isn't that like being together? Or, like what is the Cybertronian equivalent of being married?"

"Uh..." Blitzangel would have liked to know the answer to that herself. She was in the process of looking to Trailbreaker for help when there was a ping on her personal radio. "What the- someone's calling me." She checked the source. "It's from Smokescreen." It was hard to hide the surprise from her voice. Drift was the only one that knew her personal frequency. But then, Blitzangel had to remind herself that this was Smokescreen after all and Smokescreen got what he wanted whenever he wanted it. He had also been talking to Drift. It was possible the white mech just gave it to him.

"What'd he say?" Trailbreaker asked.

"He wants me to meet him. He says he has some information."

"Just you?" Trailbreaker sounded a bit offended.

"Someone's gotta watch the...this." She pointed to Mercedes. "Don't worry," Blitzangel added before she slipped out the door, "I'll make sure we keep you in the loop."

* * *

Smokescreen's message had told her to meet him in one of the sparring rooms. When the Ark was fully active in its original purpose as a space ship, the sparring rooms were invaluable. They allowed exercise for an antsy crew when they had been cooped up in space for too long. Now that the decommissioned land-bound Ark was used as a base, the sparring rooms were forgotten in favor of the great outdoors. Those rooms probably didn't even have any security cameras in them. It was the perfect place to discuss secret information.

The text-only note had explicitly instructed Blitzangel to come alone and make sure she wasn't followed. That sounded like something Smokescreen would say. He enjoyed a good intrigue like no other. He was probably over-dramatizing whatever information he had gathered, but Blitzangel would play along if it was for Drift's sake.

She stepped into the indicated room and wasn't too surprised to find it completely dark. Smokescreen would probably reveal himself like in the movies, one single spotlight on himself while he relayed his findings. It had _better_ be something good for her to put up with all this.

Blitzangel closed the door behind her, activating her night vision. She saw a bot in the corner, but didn't get a chance to take in his form before the lights flicked on without warning. Momentarily blinded, Blitzangel instantly reverted back to normal vision so she could see. There was indeed a bot standing in the corner, but it wasn't the one she was expecting. This one was taller, white with sharp edges. The last bot Blitzangel ever expected to see in that room.

"Drift, how did you..."

"Hey there." Drift grinned at her- a predatory grin- and threw a severed blue arm on the floor. Smokescreen's arm. It was what he had used to call her, pretending to be the blue Autobot. But where was Smokescreen?

"Surprise is a lovely look for you, my dear."

Blitzangel noticed his optics had darkened to a blood orange as he took a step toward her. There was a sizzle in the air that tickled her wing tips and made her shoulders tense. Blitzangel backed up, reaching for the door. It was locked. How had it locked itself?

"I'm afraid you won't be leaving here, my lovely," Drift continued. "You know my secret, don't you? You see, I've been practicing. First I figured out how to control this body. Now, I can control this entire base."

The lights in the room flickered to prove his point.

"So... what are you trying to do?" Blitzangel ventured in a careful voice.

Drift, or the one possessing Drift's body took out the two broadswords at his sides. Whatever he had been doing lately, he had been giving himself the run of the place during the power outages. "Well, first of all, I'm going to kill you. And then we'll see what I do when I get there."

Blitzangel snapped out her blades, glancing from the mech to the door as she tried to think of a plan. Before she could act, the power went out again, but this time, red lights came on and an alarm klaxon reverberated through the Ark.

"Don't even try calling for help," Drift said, just barely louder than the clamor of the siren. "They won't hear you. They'll be too busy trying to find the source of the alarm, not to mention more than half of those stupid Autobots are trapped in their rooms or locked outside right now. I just put the entire base on lock down."

That last word niggled at her memory banks. "Lockdown, that's who you are. Drift saw you. He said you were a part of his team."

Lockdown growled. "I was the BEST part of his team." With that, he attacked, rushing head-on.  
Blitzangel was ready and agile. She ran forward as well, vaulting over the blades that swiped at her and, with momentary assistance from her jets, kicked at the room's only light source. The two bots were plunged into absolute darkness before Blitzangel hit the ground.

"Nice try, but I can still see you," Lockdown told her as he turned on his night vision.

Blitzangel, however, was smirking in the darkness. Lockdown, of course, wouldn't know that she did her best work in the dark. She charged him, her speed closing the distance in a matter of seconds. Lockdown moved to block, but Blitzangel turned her arm blades on full power. He was blinded by the sudden yellow light, unable to see as the femme landed a solid kick to his chest. The white mech flew into the wall and slid down to the floor.

The purple femme was on him like a spider, fingers digging into his wires and joints. She knew Drift's body. She had seen it in action and all its inner workings on First Aid's examining table. With deft fingers, she took him apart and rendered the body immobile in a matter of seconds.

"You're not very smart," Blitzangel said as she stood and inspected her work. "How did you expect to beat anyone in a body that got the crap kicked out of it once already without any repairs?"

Lockdown growled and then smiled. "I do see your point. Maybe _your_ body would be more suitable."

Before Blitzangel could respond, Drift's body went silent and she felt a strange tingling come over her. She inspected her hands and arms, trying to prepare herself for the worst. If Lockdown took control of her body, used it to hurt herself or Drift, could she stop him?

Her horror at the possibilities began to die down when nothing happened. The electricity in her system was still there, she could feel it jolting around her muscle cables. There was a twinge of thought in her processor, wanting to move her arms and legs, but she wasn't listening to it. The electricity felt like static all over her skin, almost tickling her sensors.

Blitzangel couldn't stop herself from letting out a croak of laughter. "What are you doing in there?" she said out loud.

There weren't any words, but she distinctly felt great emotional frustration in the back of her processor that didn't come from herself. Then the sensation left her body.

The femme's attention instantly went back to Drift who began to stir. She stiffened as he came online, ready for attack despite his current condition. His optics flickered on, a fading yellow in his damaged state.

"Primus... that was weird," he murmured. His gaze turned over to the tense femme. "Good shot, Angel. I can't move right now, but Lockdown sure didn't see that coming."

Blitzangel took a tentative step forward then crouched to look Drift in the face. Lockdown may have been wily enough to attempt to act like Drift to get her to lower her guard, but he wouldn't have been able to fake the optic color. Drift's optics were always orange when Lockdown was taking charge. He wasn't in charge right now.

"You remembered this time?" she asked.

Drift tested his limbs. He wasn't getting much reaction out of them, but he didn't seem alarmed by it. "This time I could tell what he was doing with my body. I don't know if it's because I'm becoming more aware each time he uses me or because now he's been expending part of his concentration controlling the base."

Blitzangel still didn't get too close. "Do you feel him with you right now?"

Drift peered down at his battered body. "I don't know. I don't... think so. I don't feel anything like his presence in me any longer."

Not that he could feel the presence within him before. Or maybe it was because he didn't know what to look for until then. As for Blitzangel, she took note that she could no longer feel that extra electricity in the air when Lockdown was present. Maybe his spark had left the room. But if so, then...

"What if he did leave? What do you think he's going to do, Drift?"

The white mech shook his head as he thought. That fragging alarm reverberated in his audios, distracting him. "Lockdown wants me. He's not going to go very far."

"You know him, Drift, think. What would he do?"

Drift tried harder. It had been so long since he had thought about his old teammate. He preferred not to visit the past, not even in the darkness of space, a million miles away from it. He tried to think of how Lockdown had been in life.

"He holds a grudge hard, he's not going to give up. Lockdown favors brute force and pain first over stealth and cunning. He only starts using his processor when he knows he's not going to win on strength alone."

"So if he had access to brute strength, he would go for that over all others?" Blitzangel prodded.

"Yeah," Drift confirmed. Then he looked alarmed as they both happened upon the same idea. "If he can control others beside me, he's going to go for the biggest, baddest body he can find."

"Oh no," Blitzangel lamented as a few bots came to mind with whom she would rather never tangle. "We've got to get out of here. We have to tell someone."

She briefly tried her radio, expecting it not to work. Red Alert would be blocking all non-friendly frequencies so only Autobot staff would get through. Especially since the base was going nuts, all other radio waves would be blocked to keep the emergency channels clear. She would never be able to make contact.

"We've got to get out of here and tell someone." The femme scooted closer and began reconfiguring all the parts she dismantled until the function of Drift's limbs returned. She purposefully repaired him only well enough that he could walk. Lockdown wouldn't try to possess Drift again if he was so damaged he wouldn't be of any use. It certainly wouldn't hurt to have at least one body on the base that she could afford to turn her back on while this spark ran amok.

Blitzangel then inspected the door. It was still locked. Fortunately, the sparring rooms weren't exactly something that needed high security. The locks were flimsy and, after a few good slashes and some hard kicks, she managed to bust open the door. She happened to notice Smokescreen's arm still lying on the floor.

"Do you remember what happened to him?" she nodded at the arm.

"Smokescreen," Drift recalled. "He was talking to me when I was in my cell. He was so immersed in asking me questions, he didn't notice that Lockdown had unlocked my stasis cuffs and the cell door until it was too late. I believe he's still there, unconscious and damaged, but not in critical condition. Lockdown wasn't focused on him, he wanted me... and you."

Blitzangel pressed her mouth in a tight line. That dead bastard just may get her, too. She was getting pissed. "Let me find a place to hide you and I'll take care of it." She tried to loop his arm over her shoulder so she could help him out.

"No." Drift pulled back, insisting on walking on his own power. "I'm going with you. If Lockdown hurts anyone, it will only be me. This is my fault."

"Fine." Blitzangel took off running down the hall. "If you can keep up, you can come," she called behind her. There was no time to worry about Drift now, she had to warn the entire base what was going on.

The first Autobot they ran into was one of the few authorized to be out and about during a complete system lockdown. Blitzangel almost bowled over the shorter Autobot.

"Red Alert! I'm so happy to see you!"

The red and white Autobot looked horrified and squawked in return, "What are you doing? Why did you let the prisoner out?" He looked angry and betrayed as he saw Drift. Blitzangel could just see the wheels in his head churning, coming to the conclusion that all the chaos was created by her for the sole purpose of releasing Drift from his cage. Then a greater horror covered his features.

"Where's Mercedes? What did you do with her?"

"Red, she's fine. She's with Trailbreaker," the femme soothed. "I need you to listen to me. Tell me who's in the base right now."

His mouth opened to give an automatic answer, but he stopped himself. "That-you are not authorized for that information. You-"

"The Dinobots then. Just tell me where they are."

"Now listen here! You can't just start freeing prisoners and then demand-"

Blitzangel put her hands on his shoulders, looking him in the optics. "We are all in trouble if you don't listen to me. There is something loose on this base that is controlling all your security systems. It caused the power outage and now it's making your systems to go crazy. It can also take over mechanical bodies. ANY of them. And right now it's looking for the strongest body it can find. So tell me, Red Alert. Where. Are. The Dinobots?"

He worked his mouth up and down. "They- they've been outside all day. They're locked out of the base."

The femme visibly relaxed, but only a little. "That buys us some time."

"Unless he goes for someone else," Drift reminded. "There's still plenty other capable bots to choose from."

Blitzangel didn't like the idea of fighting any of them. "Where can I find Perceptor?"

Red Alert got that stubborn look again.

"Never mind," Blitzangel said before he could reply. "I'm pretty sure I know where he would be." She turned to go. "Keep the base locked," she called to the security director behind her. "Keep everyone in their rooms and separated. It's the best we can do right now."

"Wait! Wait!" Red Alert barked as they ran off. "You get back here right now! You return that prisoner to his cell!"

"Do you think he's going to come after us?" Drift asks as the two ran off to a different part of the base.

"He's got bigger problems right now," Blitzangel responded. "But he's probably going to send someone else though. More specifically, after you. Which is why we've got to hurry."

They raced to the main power core of the Ark. Blitzangel knew exactly where it was from her previous time helping to maintain the base. And there were the scientists she had been looking for, hunched over the power grid, still trying to figure out what the problem was.

"Oh hey," Wheeljack greeted casually as if the emergency protocol and power problems were everyday occurrences. "Did you come to help?" Then he saw Drift enter the room. "I guess not."

Perceptor turned and stiffened when he saw them both. "What are you doing?"

"Perceptor, you have to listen to me," Blitzangel insisted. "There is nothing wrong with the power or the security system. It's Lockdown, he's controlling everything."

The red scientist looked confused. "And who is that supposed to be?"

The femme gave a growl of frustration. "It's the spark I was telling you about. It's been controlling the base. It possessed Drift for a while and now it could be anywhere, taking over anyone. You need to find some way to trap it, Perceptor. You're the only one who can catch this thing."

He only leveled a skeptical look at her. "I do believe you may need to go through another diagnosis, my dear. I'm afraid Wheeljack and I may have been too hasty the first time-"

"There is nothing wrong with me!"Blitzangel barked in frustration. "Why won't you listen to what I am saying, you stubborn idiot?"

Perceptor's optics merely narrowed at the insult and he seemed no more swayed than when Blitzangel first stepped into the room.

It was at that time that the alarm went silent and normal power returned to the base.

"You were saying?" the scientist intoned. "It seems everything is returning to normal."

Prowl stepped into the room. "Is everyone okay in here?"

"Doing fine," Wheeljack responded, ignoring the previous argument. "You get things figured out on your end?"

"It seems we've had a glitch in the security system. It's being handled. We're keeping security measures in place for a few more minutes and then everything should be fine. What about in here?"

"Still haven't found the source, but maybe the two are connected. Once we get the glitch fixed, maybe the power will stabilize as well."

Prowl looked at Blitzangel. "And what are you doing here?"

The condescending tone in his voice made her glance away in embarrassment.

"She thinks we're being haunted," Perceptor put mildly.

"Ridiculous," Prowl said. "Really, femme, we don't have time for you to play around when we've got some serious issues on our hands. You're coming with me."

If Blitzangel hadn't felt so mortified by Prowl's tone, she may have felt the buzz in the air sooner. Or maybe she would have noticed the deep purple of Prowl's optics were not the result of the red emergency lights. But it was Prowl referring to her as 'femme' that made Blitzangel realize something was amiss. Before she could turn to give Prowl a good look, however, the black and white Autobot grabbed her shoulder. He placed the barrel of his blaster at her back and Angel felt energy punch through her body and out her chest as he pulled the trigger.

The two scientists were too horrified to react or even speak as Prowl turned on a now charging Drift. The white mech was too fast for a chest shot, but the energy beam clipped him in the shoulder. Still, Drift managed to slice up Prowl's arm in the attack, causing the SIC to drop his weapon. With his non-smoking shoulder, Drift shoved Prowl to the floor, a blade to his throat before he could get back to his feet.

"Drift, stop!" Blitzangel barked, stepping between them before Drift could run the Autobot through.

Prowl looked a bit scared. Even more so, he was extremely confused about what had happened. His optics were now his usual baby blue and there was no longer that energy hum in the air aggravating Angel's wing tips.

Drift was not aware of any of this. His optics were glued to the gaping, smoking hole in the femme's chest, right where her spark should have been.

"Angel, you're still..." He reached for her wounded chest, but then recoiled with a sudden fear when he realized whatever was standing before him wasn't what he thought she was.

Blitzangel didn't have time for his insecurities. Her attention was on Prowl. The black and white mech was still sitting on the floor, bewildered. His optics riveted on Blitzangel's gaping chest wound as she crouched next to him.

"Angel, I'm so sorry. I couldn't control myself." His hands were shaking as he gripped her arm.

"I know. It's okay," she said gently as she opened his chest and inspected his inner systems.

At first, Prowl thought she was looking for any wounds, but when she began to tinker with his completely unharmed hardware he grew suspicious. "What are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," Blitzangel said as she shut down his systems. "The more bots we have online, the more dangerous it's going to be."

Prowl gripped her arm tighter in alarm and then his optics began to fade. His body fell lifeless.

"Oh, he's not going to be happy about that at all," Wheeljack said.

"He can yell at me later," Blitzangel replied. "Right now we've got a job to do," she looked directly at Perceptor, "don't we?"

Perceptor had his business face on now. "Yes. What sort of devices are you looking for?"

"Anything that can remove this thing from a body would be great. If it could trap it, that would be even better. But at this point, I'll take whatever you can come up with that will give us the upper hand."

They all walked out and Blitzangel pointed to the door. "Lock Prowl in. He's not getting out until this is fixed."

"And what about us?" Wheeljack said. "What if it's going to take one of us next?"

"He's not going to. He thinks like a Decepticon. He'll go after the bigger fish."

"And what will you two be doing?" Perceptor asked.

"We're the targets. We're going to keep him busy and warn as many bots as we can."

Perceptor was eying the gaping wound in her chest. She may have been without a spark to damage, but that didn't mean that gunshot wasn't going to catch up with her sooner or later. "Be careful, be smart. Just buy us time, nothing else."

Blitzangel nodded and the two groups went their separate ways.

* * *

With nowhere specific to be, Blitzangel found her way back to the holding cells. What were they supposed to do? It wasn't like they could just run up and down the halls, waiting for someone else to become possessed by the rogue spark running around the place.

The first task Blitzangel gave herself was to get Smokescreen to the medical bay. His lifeless body had been found outside Drift's cell ... minus one arm. He had been sliced in several places and was dripping fluids. Blitzangel glanced over at Drift, noting his broadswords at his hips. How had he gotten hold of them again? That might have been the reason for all those power outages. With Lockdown controlling the Ark's systems, he could cut the power so he could sneak around in Drift's body without being detected.

The other Decepticons were still in their cells. It seemed Lockdown didn't want to bother with his own faction. With the emergency protocols in place, there would be no getting those cell doors open without high authorization.

Smokescreen groaned as Blitzangel hefted his bulky form over her shoulder. Her joints creaked at the added weight. He had to be heavier than his younger brother. She couldn't imagine Prowl weighing this much.

Drift didn't move to help her. He stood a careful distance away and had become uncharacteristically quiet.

"Are you going to help me at all?" Blitzangel grunted. "I'm kind of damaged now, too."

Drift was silent for a moment more. "You don't have a spark."

"I know," the femme said quietly.

"What are you?"

"If we make it out of this alive, I'll tell you. But right now is really not the time. Are you going to help me?"

Drift was silent again and Blitzangel wondered if she was going to have to carry the dead weight all the way to the medical bay herself. Then she heard the sharp sound of metal sliding against metal. It was an unmistakable sound. Drift was unsheathing his blades. Blitzangel jumped backward, Smokescreen's body and her own colliding with the wall as a broadsword swiped at them. She saw the glare of orange optics as Drift attacked. Her theory that Lockdown would not possess Drift again with his body as damaged as it was had been wrong. Drift still seemed perfectly capable of exacting plenty of damage on his own.

Blitzangel snapped up her energy blades just in time to stop Drift from slicing through her shoulder. She could tell he wasn't at full strength, but she still had to use all her might to stop his attack. The two locked stares and Blitzangel could see the red swirling around in the once yellow optics. She kicked him in the stomach and Drift slid back several feet before turning on his heel and running down the hall.

The femme was torn. Smokescreen was still wounded on the floor, but if Drift ran amok through the base without any warning, he could hurt many others.

"Forget me," Smokescreen rasped as his optics flickered. "I'll be fine. Get that bastard."

Blitzangel sprinted after the white mech without a word. She was already beginning to fear where Drift was headed. Down this corridor was the main control and surveillance room. Not to mention Teletraan One. If Drift got in there, who knows what damage he could do? Unfortunately, she saw the white form disappear into that very room and she charged after him.

In hindsight, Blitzangel regretted running inside without first assessing the area. But she had assumed she knew exactly what she was going after. As soon as she ran in, the doors to the main control room slid shut behind her, locking heavily. Blitzangel tensed in the dim light, her energy blades glowing. There was even less light in the control room than there was in the hallways. Only a few tiny screens flickered, just enough to give her the shape of the space. She combed the area for anything pale and Drift-shaped. There was a moan behind her and she quickly turned around.

Drift was sitting by the door, rubbing his head in confusion. His optics were yellow. Blitzangel stepped back in alarm, feeling like she had just been tricked. Why had Lockdown trapped her in this room? And why, if he was no longer possessing Drift, did she still feel that annoying buzz of energy in the air?

Behind her, large purple optics glowed above her head in the darkness. She heard the shuffle of movement behind her only a split second before a hand grabbed her around her midsection. It was almost large enough to wrap entirely around her waist. She was lifted off the ground and jerked toward a grinning face. That expression looked out of place on the faceplates of Ultra Magnus.

"Alone at last," he said with a satisfactory tone. "Just the three of us: you, Deadlock; me, and

the femme."

Lockdown, in the body of the base commander, stomped over to Drift and kicked him across the room. "Pay attention! I want you to watch me clip this butterfly's wings before I scrap you."

Blitzangel squirmed in his grasp, slicing at his arm. Lockdown slammed her into the wall a few times, rattling her circuits.

Drift groaned as he rose to his hands and knees. His body had just about reached the limit of abuse it could take. Still, he managed to stagger to his feet. "Lockdown, I'm the one you want. Leave the femme and come fight me."

"Hardly a fight in your condition, Deadlock," Lockdown sneered, spitting out the mech's former name. "No, the point is to make you suffer. It's the least a traitor like you deserves. So you will watch as I strip away the last of what you have left to care for and then your spark is mine."

Drift attempted to rush Lockdown, but the massive body backhanded him off his feet again. Lockdown then turned his attention back to Blitzangel, eyeing the gaping wound in her chest. "And aren't you interesting, my dear? Certainly difficult to kill, I'll give you that. But the longer you last, the more fun I'll have taking you apart."

Blitzangel sliced at him as he reached for her with his free hand. Her energy blade crackled angrily as he grabbed it. The yellow light was blocked out by his massive hand, ignoring the damage it did to Ultra Magnus' body. He jerked sharply and Blitzangel gave a startled cry of pain. A hunk of twisted metal was thrown to the floor and the femme's remaining energy blade illuminated the stump of her arm, torn off at the elbow.

Lockdown reached for her again with his damaged hand, dripping energon. "Now, let's see what makes you tick." He grabbed her at the torso, thumb digging into the hole in her chest as if trying to pry open a nut.

Sickness came over her as Blitzangel felt her body tearing in half. She flashed back to previous injuries: arms ripping, hands digging inside her. It made any cries of horror stick in her throat. Desperately wishing for darkness, she retained complete consciousness as her physical form was being split in two, feeling every twist and break in her body. Several warnings flickered across her vision as she began to lose power and feeling on one side.

Then something solid and white collided with her and she fell to the ground, her left side dead and useless.

Drift stood before the larger form of Ultra Magnus, his broadswords out. He had opened a deep gash in the base commander's side.

Lockdown looked at his wound and then sneered at Drift. "Looks like I'll need to put you out of commission first before I can finish with the femme."

Drift crouched in a ready stance. "Come and get-"

He was cut off as Lockdown charged him at full force. Normally, Drift would have been able to dodge the assault. But the damage he had received over the past few days was taking its toll and slowing him down considerably. He took the brunt of the attack as the massive body of Ultra Magnus slammed him into the floor, his swords flying from his hands. While Drift tried to get his vision to stop flickering, Lockdown retrieved one of the lost blades. He walked back over and placed a heavy foot on Drift's chest, causing the white mech to squeak in pain.

"Even in this condition, you still insist on being a nuisance," Lockdown spat at him. "Maybe you'll behave better if I remove a few of those limbs."

He stood back and raised the sword to rend Drift's shoulder from his body. The white mech was too damaged and tired to get out of the way. The blade whistled as it sliced through the air, then clanged sharply when when it failed to cut and instead hit unrelenting steel.

Lockdown growled at the defensive sword held against his attack. The blade was long and thin, ornate with ancient Cybertronian glyphs. It was Drift's missing sword. The one he always kept on his back and never used. The ornate blade was held aloft in the air between Lockdown and the supine Drift. A light blue mist hung around it and slowly formed into a Cybertronian design.

"Wing," Lockdown grinned at the familiar silhouette. "I was wondering if you were ever going to try to stop me. I should have known you'd show up to protect your little progeny."

"Only you would waste so much energy on such pettiness," the translucent form of Wing whispered in an airy voice. "Your real quarrel is with me and you know it."

"Deadlock is just as guilty as you are for dissension and cowardice. But I can KILL him. I can rip him up piece by piece, make him cry, make him suffer. It's not quite the same as arguing with you in that room for another four million years, now is it?"

Drift struggled to sit up, not believing his audios. It has been so long since he had heard that voice. Could it really be Wing? His leader, his mentor. The one who had gotten him out of the Decepticons at the cost of his own life.

"You can't have him," the ethereal voice growled. "He has a purpose. His destiny does not end here!"

"HE IS MINE!" Lockdown reared back and attacked again. Blade clashed against blade. Wing's disincarnate form held firm, but without a solid body, he was fading out. Lockdown slashed with all the strength of the body he had possessed and the last hit knocked Wing's sword free. The body lost the remainder of its power and dissipated.

"Now," Lockdown announced at the struggling Drift. "You can finally meet your beloved Wing on the other side."

There was a heavy crash against the surveillance room wall. Then another. The metal bent and tore with a splitting squeal as a massive head and jaws ripped through it. Grimlock roared and wriggled until he pulled his impressive girth through.

Lockdown and Drift both stared at him, stock-still. Grimlock eyed them and seemed to sniff the air as if trying to figure out who his enemy was. He looked at Drift neutrally and then to the form of Ultra Magnus and his hackles raised as if he could smell the darkness upon him. Lockdown tried to defend with his sword, but he was no match for the strength of the beast. Grimlock clamped down on his arm and whipped him across the room. He collided with the wall and slid to the floor.

Despite his injuries, Lockdown grinned. "Now there's a body with power."

A mist-like substance, barely visible to the eye, left the body of Ultra Magnus and the Autobot's optics fell back to their normal blue. The mist slithered into the new, reptilian form and Grimlock turned, his optics catching the dark, female body twitching on the floor. He stalked over to Blitzangel and looked down at the femme. She was clutching the broken half of her herself with her good arm as if it would fall apart upon letting go. Her whole body shivered from the shock of the damage and she looked up with as much fear as she was emotionally capable of as Grimlock towered over her, teeth bared.

Then Grimlock crouched low on the ground and butted her lightly with his nose. Blitzangel looked into his blue optics as he gave her a friendly rumble in his chest. Inching forward, Grimlock pressed his head into her, allowing her to use him to help her sit up. At the same time, other bodies were climbing in through the hole in the wall. Grimlock turned and growled protectively as he was approached.

"It's just me, you big lugnut," Wheeljack said impatiently. He put his hand in Grimlock's mouth, giving the beast's jaw a fearless jerk. He was probably the only bot on the planet who could have gotten away with such a thing unscathed.

The inventor crouched next to Blitzangel who grabbed his arm urgently. "I-I saw Lockdown go into Grimlock," she hissed with a quivering voice. "It's only a matter of time before-"

"Nah," Wheeljack cut her off calmly. "We've got it taken care of."

"Indeed," Perceptor agreed as he approached. "You see, it just so happened we ran into Red Alert on our way back to the lab. He gave us some information that helped us to be more prepared."

He politely tapped Grimlock and the Dinobot reared up to display his chest. Perceptor opened the gray and yellow torso plating. On top of Grimlock's normal familiar systems nestled a clear container over his spark housing as if to further protect it. Something swirled in the container like an angry blue mist.

"We were able to come up with this little device just in time," the scientist continued. "Red informed us our uninvited guest would be looking for the largest, strongest body he could find. So we found him one and made sure there was a nice, little surprise inside."

"Yes, me Grimlock be _clandestine_," he said proudly, though he obviously got the word from Perceptor.

Seeing the crisis was over, Blitzangel slumped against Wheeljack, no longer having to be brave.

"Let's get you to the med bay and we can discuss everything there," Wheeljack said in a soft tone. He slipped his arms under her. Blitzangel made a noise of pain when he tried to pick her up.

"I know," Wheeljack soothed her as he lifted her gently. "Hold on, it will be okay."

Ultra Magnus stood over them. He was trying to keep his expression stoic, but regret was leaking through his features. He looked like he was about to say something when a body almost half his size shoved him out of the way.

"Angel!" A horrified Jazz rushed them, lightly putting his fingertips on the damaged femme. "Baby, what happened? Speak to me."

"She's a bit in shock," Wheeljack answered for her when Blitzangel barely moved. "I need to get her to the med bay so we can properly assess the damage."

"I'll come with you," Jazz said.

"Someone needs to organize this mess," Perceptor informed him. He had closed Grimlock's chest and was now holding a curious glass canister in his hands. "We're running short on undamaged commanding officers." He nodded to Ultra Magnus who was holding the gash in his side. Despite the base commander's best attempts to appear stalwart, energon was seeping through his fingers and onto the floor.

Jazz knew Perceptor's words were true. Red Alert was running rampant on the emergency channels, demanding answers from anyone who knew what was going on. Smokescreen's offline body had already been found in the hall with no further explanation. Prowl was also missing. Someone had to take charge.

Jazz took one last look at his wounded friend and then turned to Ultra Magnus. "You need to go to the med bay. At least get your leaks patched up."

"What about this one?" Kup called from the other side of the room. He had his energy weapon trained right on Drift's head. The white mech was hardly in any shape to make a protest.

"He should be harmless now," Wheeljack said as he started toward the large hole in the wall with his patient. "Take him back to the med bay, too."

Jazz nodded to Kup. "Get him over there, but keep a security detail on him. After you've done that, Kup, go help Red Alert. We need to get this place back in order."

"I do know where Prowl is," Perceptor offered. "He's currently offline, but his damage should be minimal. After I properly store this," he motioned to his canister, "I can retrieve him."

"Do it," Jazz confirmed. "And while you're at it, tell me what the frag's been goin' on."

* * *

Drift couldn't recall ever going offline due to his injuries. He had been clinging to awareness as stubbornly as he could. Even so, he found himself no longer in the world of the conscious and yet, there was consciousness still on a different plane of existence. Drift could no longer sense the outside world, but he was aware of himself, standing alone within his own thoughts. And then, he was aware of another standing next to him.

The other mech was a good head taller than Drift and wider in girth. His edges and optics were sharp with strength and intelligence. His paint scheme was a stark white, the same color that Drift was inspired to choose when he was redesigned and renamed. It was Wing, the leader of Drift's old Decepticon team. His mentor, his friend.

"Deadlock," Wing said gently as Drift turned to face him. "Or should I say Drift now? Very aptly named for the lifestyle you have chosen."

Drift looked at hin for several moments. "I- I don't know what's going on any more. Why are you here? HOW are you here?"

"The simple version, my friend, is that this great Autobot ship you found yourself in was once a part of our ship when we tried to escape Cybertron. It was that very ship where Lockdown betrayed our plans to Megatron and sent our flight careening back down into Autobot territory. As you may recall, he and I were killed during that battle. Even as our sparks left our bodies there was no surcease. Our sparks remained in that hull, forever entwined by our own stubbornness. Even as the remains of our ship were scrapped and used by the Autobots to build their own."

Wing placed a hand on Drift's shoulder. It was as solid and heavy as Drift remembered it to be.

"The more complicated explanation is that I am here because everything is connected through the thin but adamantine strands of fate and no matter how far you go, you will never truly be able to run from them."

Wing allowed his former student a moment to process all information he had been given.

"Then... what do you want me to do?" Drift asked softly.

There was almost laughter in the older bot's voice. "Well it's not up to me, now is it? It's your life, Drift. Not mine."

Drift's expression turned pained and lost. No matter how long he had lived life on his own, all his previous independence faltered in Wing's wake. With his leader present again, all his wishes were for orders, direction.

"You said fate brought us both here to this point. Doesn't that mean fate will only give me one choice for the future, no matter what I do?"

"There is always another choice," Wing said. "I cannot promise fate will not send you constant reminders of what you left behind, but you always have the option to decline what is presented to you."

"And what exactly is presented to me?" Drift asked.

"That femme you have hitched your star to, she will go back to Cybertron with the Autobots. Their fate lies there. The fate of all of our kind lies there. Something is coming to Cybertron. Something disastrous."

"And you want me to go back to Cybertron, the planet that has no place for me, and meet this disaster."

"The choice, as always, is up to you, Drift. To ignore your destiny means adventure. To meet it means honor."

Drift's shoulders drooped a bit, though he tried to put on a brave appearance. Wing wasn't going to make this easy on him; he never did.

"What about you, Wing? What will happen to you?"

His mentor smiled at him. "Do not worry about me. I shall not be in limbo much longer. I feel Him coming for me: the Prime, the Matrix, Primus. Very soon I will find my way home."

"Then... this shall truly be the last time I see you."

Wing grabbed the back of Drift's helm and pulled him forward until their foreheads pressed together. "Only until we meet again where all are one, my student-my friend."

Drift pulled back, standing up straight. "Until then, I will try to make you proud."

Wing smiled and inclined his head. Drift turned, feeling the pull of the waking world calling to him. Wing grabbed his shoulder, causing him to turn around one last time.

"Drift," he said in a soft voice, "if Cybertron is what you choose, there is something I want you to know."

Drift looked his one true leader in the optics, waiting for his final words of wisdom.

* * *

Drift came online in the Autobots' medical bay. The status report in his vision told him most of his injuries had been fixed and his lost fuels replenished. It took a while to get used to the real world again. He hissed air from his vents as he let the full weight of Wing's words settle upon him.

"Well look who's awake."

Drift turned his head toward the sound of the voice. He saw the blue Autobot, Smokescreen, sitting on the next table. First Aid was almost finished welding his severed arm back into place.

"The Doc here was wondering if you were ever going to come out of it," Smokescreen continued. "He said you were sleeping like you were in some sort of spark coma."

"Probably because of the foreign possession," First Aid offered. "Your psyche needed time to rest just as your body did."

Drift sat up, testing his joints and his systems. "Where's Angel? How is she?"

"She was given first priority. I've since repaired her. She's no longer in the med bay."

"Last I heard she went to go hide somewhere," Smokescreen added. "Probably to lick her wounds. She'll come out when she's ready."

First Aid kept his worries to himself. The femme had been strangely despondent while she was repaired. He worried that psychological damage had occurred along with the physical. When she was first placed on the table, she had been whimpering, clutching her damaged side and shivering. Such a reaction to damage First Aid had never witnessed before.

Drift slid off the table. "I'll go see if I can find her."

"You won't be allowed to search alone, I'm afraid." First Aid gestured to the doorway and Springer stepped inside. "Ultra Magnus has ordered that you have an escort at all times for the next few days for safety's sake."

"Well I'll just find Angel and she'll be my escort," Drift shot back.

"She's not an Autobot," Smokescreen answered for the medic. "She doesn't count. But if you want, I'll hang out with ya."

Drift looked to Smokescreen and then to Springer. The green Autobot didn't seem quite as affable around Drift as he had been when they had sparred. After Drift had stabbed a femme, whether it was his fault or not, he had dropped considerably on Springer's approval scale. That femme he stabbed could have just as easily been Arcee. That was why Springer volunteered to keep at optic on the neutral now.

Drift just shrugged as he walked out the door. "Whoever wants to follow me around is welcome to."

* * *

Smokescreen was the one that tailed Drift when he entered Wheeljack's lab. There were other guards stationed at the lab and they might not have let the neutral in despite his own personal baby-sitter had not Ultra Magnus been there himself and allowed it. It was not lost on Drift that several optics were keeping a sharp eye on him and everything he did as he approached the Autobot base commander.

"So Drift, I trust you are feeling better now," Ultra Magnus greeted. He was standing a few paces away from Wheeljack and Perceptor who were studying a canister with a strange fog inside. They were taking energy readings and jotting down notes in a flurry.

"Better than I have in the last few days anyway," the neutral replied gruffly. He rotated his shoulder to test the joints. "Though you really scrapped me good."

"I'm sorry, at least for the second time," the base commander acknowledged.

"And I certainly don't blame you for the first." Drift nodded in the direction of the scientists. "That over there, does that mean it's over?"

"We certainly hope so. These two claim that this apparatus is housing the actual consciousness of a former Decepticon." Ultra Magnus inclined his head toward the neutral. "An old crony of yours, I'm assuming?"

"It's Lockdown," Drift nodded. "I'm sure you know who that is, since you seem to know so much about my past." When Ultra Magnus didn't say anything, Drift went on. "Your base was built from parts of the ship where he died. His spark had been lurking in the remnants all this time."

"I knew it," Smokescreen said as if he had just won a bet.

Ultra Magnus gave him a sharp glance to keep him quiet.

"He was only after me," Drift continued. "And Angel because she was with me."

"And when he had finished with you, he would have then turned on the rest of us until not an Autobot was left standing," Ultra Magnus countered.

Drift didn't argue with the base commander. He knew it was true. Lockdown lived for blood, even in death. He hated Autobots … hated everyone. Even Wing. Especially Wing, the one who called all the shots and received all the glory from Megatron's praise. Wing was a fool not to realize that Lockdown would have betrayed him the first opportunity he had. That miscalculation had cost them both their lives.

"Well, if it had to happen, I am lucky it happened here, where your scientists had the technology to catch him," Drift said. "It's very impressive."

Perceptor turned around to face them. "I'm afraid we cannot take the credit. Blitzangel was the one who knew from the start what was going on. We were too full of our own theories to listen to her until it was almost too late. The only reason we were able to put something together so fast was because I was already working on manufacturing a device to house the sparks of our Decepticon prisoners so we could transport them safely back to Cybertron. That, plus Wheeljack's uncanny speed for modification was what saved us all. I'm afraid we were woefully ill-prepared for this. We should have given her more consideration."

"Lesson learned," Smokescreen jumped in as he approached the canister and looked deep into the fog of what remained of the Decepticon Lockdown. "That kid really does have a sixth sense for these sort of things."

"Yes, well, hopefully we don't have any more sparks floating about the base and this was a once in a lifetime occurrence."

"There is one more," Drift offered. When all Autobots froze and stared at him he added, "Wing also died in that shuttle. He, too, has been inhabiting your base. He, however, is... what was that word you used, Smokescreen? Innocuous?"

He glared at Smokescreen, who had used that word when he first asked Drift to step into that haunted room.

"Heh, heh," the blue Autobot laughed awkwardly. "My mistake, fully."

"You're sure of all of this," Ultra Magnus pressed, looking a bit irritated at another possible crisis.

"He's here," Drift nodded. "He spoke to me while I was offline. I know he won't hurt anyone. He's not like that. When we worked for Megatron, we thought what we were doing was for the greater good of our people, for the survival of Cybertron. When we found out that it was all for Megatron's quest for power we tried to get out. That's how they both died. Wing told me ... he's waiting for the Prime to come so he can finally rest."

Ultra Magnus said nothing. Optimus Prime certainly had no plans to come to Earth anytime soon.

"Does anyone know where Angel is?" Drift then asked. "I just want to make sure she's okay."

Ultra Magnus' expression turned rueful for a brief moment before his usual professional mask fell back into place. "I believe she went to find herself some solitude after a hard battle. It's protocol on my base that we respect her privacy until she seeks out company."

Drift nodded. "Understood. Then I'm going outside for a while." Suddenly, the walls of the Ark and all the secrets they contained felt far too tight for him.

* * *

Prowl knew well of Ultra Magnus' protocol and decided it was rendered moot in light of current events. He and Jazz had mutually decided that Blitzangel needed to be located after she slipped away from the medical bay. Unfortunately, since the femme didn't give off any kind of energy signature, she wouldn't show up on their radars even if she was standing right next to them. They had to go look for her the low tech way.

First, they searched for her at the obvious places: her old room, Sunstreaker's quarters and Jazz's. All places she had gone before to see solace. When those options turned out to be fruitless, they expanded their search, glancing in any room they came across. That was, until Ultra Magnus caught them sniffing about. He ordered Jazz to get back to work and directed Prowl to the med bay to get his damaged arm fixed.

With the two SICs busted, they sent their second wave on a covert search party. Two of which were extremely adept at sneaking around. They managed to check every space on the Ark outside of the staff's personal quarters and wound up with nothing. After their reconnoiter, the two brothers met back outside Crystal's old room, the one Blitzangel had never used.

"She's not here," Sunstreaker huffed. "We've been looking around for nothing."

"Red Alert said he didn't see any sign she left the base," Sideswipe reminded.

"Half of Red's security cameras are slagged from that system mess up," the yellow brother shot back. "He don't know frag all what's going on around here."

Sideswipe paused to think. Then he tipped his head toward the tiny room that hadn't been in use for almost a year. "I think she's in there."

"I think you're an idiot," his brother snapped back. "Prowl told us he already checked in there. Then Bluestreak said he looked, too, just twenty minutes ago. She ain't in there."

Sideswipe seemed to accept the response at first, then he became agitated. "I'm going to check again."

Sunstreaker made a big show of sighing out his vents, but with lack of any other options, let his brother do what he wanted. Sideswipe opened the door and flipped on the light. The room was so small, one could see instantly the only thing inside the closet-like space was the slab of metal used as a bed and nothing else.

"See, buckethead? There's no one in here." Sunstreaker slapped his brother on the shoulder and then turned off the lights again. "Now let's keep looking. Maybe the Dinobots can sniff her out."

But Sideswipe ignored him and stepped into the dark room. He looked at the narrow walls and then moved over to lean against the far wall next to the bed. Slowly, he sat himself on the floor, facing the doorway.

"You done yet?" Sunstreaker demanded impatiently from the entrance. "Or do you wanna have a tea party in here while you're at it?"

There was a small noise in the room that didn't come from either mech. A very soft whimper.  
Sideswipe put his hand on the bed. It was really just a slab of flat metal that slid out of the corner walls. It was designed so it could be tucked away in case more room was required in the tiny space. Crystal usually kept it out so she could store things under it.

Sideswipe slid the slab back into the wall, revealing the femme body that had been hiding underneath it the entire time. Blitzangel was curled up as tight as she could into the corner, facing the wall. Her arms hugged her sides as if trying to keep herself from falling apart. The green optic band was off, signaling she was asleep. Though it didn't prevent her from making soft, pathetic noises as she twitched.

Sunstreaker stepped into the room and crouched, grabbing Blitzangel's foot and tugging on it.

"Hey, wake up."

Blitzangel jerked awake, momentary horror filling her face at the large silhouettes illuminated from the dim light of the hall. Then her processor instantly recognized the forms looming over her.

"What?" she asked, still looking defensive and stiff.

"Why you hiding from us?" Sunstreaker asked, still crouched at her feet.

Blitzangel flopped back to the floor, curling up again. "I just want to be by myself right now. Can you please go?" Her voice sounded weak, like she didn't have any fight left in her.

"Nu uh," Sunstreaker insisted, grabbing her foot and jerking her closer to him. "You're not doing yourself any favors having a pity party in the dark."

Blitzangel didn't say anything, didn't look at him.

"Look, I don't care what you say," Sunstreaker went on, "somebody did something to you, something that messed you up real good. And it's going to continue to mess you up until you tell someone what happened."

The femme wrapped herself in stubbornness as she curled up tighter, trying to escape the two Autobot brothers. But escape was not allowed as strong arms of the bot laying on the floor behind her enfolded and pressed her against a flat chest.

"The dark won't save you," Sideswipe said softly. "When you sit in it all alone, it will eat you up. But if you let someone into the darkness with you, you can hide and be safe."

Blitzangel lay still. She let the song of Sideswipe's spark beat into her back, low and patient. The exact opposite of his brother's. Sideswipe settled behind her, curling his body protectively around the smaller form. His joints hissed as they relaxed, preparing to be there for a while as he let his face press into the back of her helm.

Sunstreaker was still crouched, tensed at her feet, but all Blitzangel could feel when she switched off her optic band was the calm, patient body pressed against her.

"It was always dark... in there," she said softly. "In the tower. In the lab."

"Who's lab?" Sunstreaker asked softly.

"Shockwave's." She tried to curl up in a smaller ball and Sideswipe's body tightened around her in response. "I know to you it's no big deal, you're used to it. But he opened me up, took everything out. Dug in my head, dug in my body. He made sure I was aware of it as if trying to see what it would do to me. Then he reprogrammed me so I had to obey." Her voice rose in pitch. "How can he do that to me? How can he change me so easily? How can he take away everything that I am without even trying?"

Sunstreaker squeezed himself into the corner so he was sitting against the far wall, Blitzangel between him and his brother. He put his hand lightly on her head. "That's just how we are. We have strong bodies, we can live forever, but we can still be hurt, changed, erased. Everything alive can die. That's just the way it is."

"He made it so I couldn't speak, couldn't move," she continued bitterly. "Anything I was ordered to do, my body did it. If anyone wanted to touch me- do anything to me- they could and there was nothing I could do. I was ordered to kill and I couldn't stop it."

She trembled. "Shockwave would always call me back onto his table. He would open me up and dig inside." Her voice grew a disgusted tone. "He was always digging and fiddling: pulling things out and putting them back in. He would just leave me online so I could watch him do it."

Her hands drifted to her chest. "He would turn it on, this fake spark signature I have. He would just leave it on and take me apart and put me back together like it gave him some sick satisfaction to make me watch. It was as if he knew, inside my head, I was screaming."

Sunstreaker stared at her, disgust and bafflement fighting for dominance on his face. Of all the sick and twisted fates he could imagine to befall a femme left to the mercies of Decepticons, taking her apart while she was conscious was just plain... _weird_. What kind of sick fragger was this Shockwave and what in the name of the pit was he trying to do?

"That really can't be all there was," he found himself saying. "You've been repaired before. Maybe that Decepticon wasn't the ideal medic, but..."

"Sometimes,when I get damaged, I can handle it," Blitzangel said in a small, tremulous voice. "It feels like it's not me that's getting stabbed, shot, ripped apart. Other times, I can feel all the metal break and bend. Knowing it will all be shoved and bolted back together makes me so sick I can barely stand it."

Sunstreaker felt a wave of nausea hit him, too. In that moment, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that flesh was never meant to be metal. Maybe Shockwave knew this, too. Maybe he knew he had something unnatural on his table and he was looking for answers night after night. What Sunstreaker did know for sure was that even though Blitzangel's current condition wasn't her fault, if she couldn't fully come to terms with what she was, it would be the end of her.

"The nightmares I have," she continued, "they're always the same. I can't move. I feel hands grabbing me, ripping me open. Tearing everything out."

Sideswipe's vents hissed again, a high, interrupting sound. "Not tonight," he told her with finality. "No more nightmares tonight."

"You can't control that," Blitzangel argued weakly, not even looking back at him.

"But I still know," Sideswipe insisted, his voice soft. "I know because we are together and we are all connected."

Something hurt in her chest, a different kind of pain and Blitzangel held onto it. It made her feel more alive somehow. She curled around the pain and held it close to her even as she drifted off to sleep again. This time, there were no nightmares Nor did Blitzangel dream.


	17. Chapter 17: Last Days on Earth Part 1

Rising Generations

Chapter 17: Last Days on Earth Part 1

Blitzangel awoke from her slumber feeling surprisingly good. Cozy, even. Maybe it had something to do with the large, lanky body curled around her, engine rumbling pleasantly into her back. The mechanical hum of life was comforting somehow, a relief from the turmoil that had wracked her the night before. She hated being such a seesaw of emotion. One moment, she would be perfectly fine and then the next, something would happen that would twist her inside out, making her wish she had the ability to claw right out of her metal skin.

The night had been rough, but the morning was calm and cool, like the sky after a storm. And it did indeed feel like she had weathered a storm the night before. Just as though the rain had beat against her all night long she felt cleaner, lighter somehow. Maybe Sunstreaker was right. Talking about it had helped and it seemed less of a nightmare now that someone knew what had happened to her.

The yellow Autobot was still there, slumped against the wall, dim optics watching the door as if only half awake. He looked different to her this morning, though she wasn't sure how.

_We are all connected.  
_  
Such a poignant phrase. She had heard it over and over but had never really listened until now. Living in a metal body was not living life so differently. It did not stop her from being alive, from feeling or getting close. Metal on its own was cold, unforgiving, merciless. When infused with a spark, however, it warmed, enfolded, _breathed_.

Blitzangel touched the arm at her collar, pulling it in closer around her and actually enjoyed the serene beginning to her day.

"You finally awake?" Sunstreaker asked, his tone low and neutral.

Blitzangel just made a slothful noise and snuggled into the warmth of Sideswipe's body. His arms instantly reacted, tucking her in. What a lovely little sleep companion he was. Like a big teddy bear. One that could hug you back. And purr.

"Now you're just being lazy," Sunstreaker huffed. "Both of you. Get up, Dorkface."

"But she's so soft," Sideswipe sighed comfortably.

"Of course she's soft, she's a femme. Now get up." Sunstreaker slapped his palm on his brother's audial. Sideswipe recoiled and covered his head at the painful feedback.

"Come on." Sunstreaker grabbed his hand, pulling him to his feet. "We've got to report to Autobot City."  
Blitzangel was still lying on the ground, currently wondering how her metal body could feel softer than a male's metal body.

"What about you?" the yellow Autobot asked. "You gonna stay in here? Want me to get someone else to snuggle with you?" He grinned. "I think Tracks is free right now."

"I am sure I will survive without Tracks," the femme replied flatly. Without the warm body next to her, the floor wasn't so comfortable any more. "I'll be up in a minute."

"Okay." Sunstreaker hesitated at the door. "If you need anything... Jazz and Prowl will still be in the base. Or go find someone- Bluestreak or Wheeljack, maybe. Or come out to the City if you want. Just don't spend the morning by yourself."

"I won't," she said softly.

The two tall shadows departed her doorway and Blitzangel only lay there for a few moments more before she decided to pick herself up. Getting up was always the first step and for the first time in a long time Blitzangel felt like getting up.

The first place she went was Wheeljack's lab. After all the craziness of the night before, she needed someone to confirm it to her in scientific terms. Wheeljack and Perceptor were both there. She found them in one corner, talking up a storm while Perceptor scribbled wildly on a large data board on the wall. All the equations in Cybertronian were a bit above Blitzangel's head. However, she was aware of that extra part of her mind that absorbed the math with ease and nodded in approval. That was still a part of her past she was trying to figure out. She left it alone for now.

The two scientists were involved in their theories and did not notice her entrance.

"Um, hey guys," she said once she managed to get a word in.

Both went silent and turned to look at her.

"Oh... hey Angel," Wheeljack said carefully, trying to gauge her mood. It was common knowledge at the Ark that she had not been in the best shape emotionally when released from the med bay the night before.

"Hey." She hopped up onto one of the stools next to the inventor. "So how did everything go? Do we still have our... ghost contained?"

"Yes, observe." Perceptor motioned to the canister secured to a pedestal, which was now reinforced with higher security: an extra layer of shatterproof glass and boxed in with security lasers so no one could fiddle with it without proper authorization.

Blitzangel slid off her stool and went to go peer at it. The glass contained a bluish black mist that swirled around lazily at times and then jerked around violently as if it were alive. It gathered in Blitzangel's corner when she approached as if it were observing her as well.

"So this is Lockdown, all bottled up," she commented.

"As near as we can ascertain," Perceptor confirmed. "There has never been anything like this in the history of Cybertron. We are on brave new ground here. Possibly one of the most important discoveries in the science of our people in millions of years! It's quite exciting." He coughed, feeling his emotions were a bit too intense for the present company.

Blitzangel smiled at him. "I'm excited for you. Really, I'm just happy everyone's safe."

"And that, we have you to be thankful for just as much as anything we did."

Perceptor thought back to Smokescreen's comment. _That kid really does have a sixth sense about these things._ The blue Autobot had been right. "We should have taken you more seriously. I'm sorry about that."

"Hey, I understand," she shot back. "It was a crazy, unlikely idea and I had zero proof to back it up but my own gut feeling. You had to go with what sounded reasonable. That's your job."

"It's a good thing you kept bugging us until we came to our senses," Wheeljack put in. "Luckily we got to see a spark possession in action with enough time that we could still do something about it. Though I'm sorry you seemed to get the short end of the stick when it came to that. We didn't mean for you to get hurt."

Blitzangel waved them both off. "I understand. It happens. No one was killed and everything else could be fixed." She gave them a small smile. "Even me, with a little time."

"And with your help, we can now learn more about this phenomenon," Perceptor said. "We may find out how his consciousness remained here without a spark and how he managed to possess others. With this new information, we can make sure it doesn't happen again."

"I think he tried to possess me at one time," Blitzangel offered. "I could feel him in there, trying to take over my body, but his thoughts were more like a suggestion. I didn't have to do what he wanted."

"Interesting." Perceptor rubbed his chin. "The possession must be in the spark. It would also explain why the victim has no recollection. It's a possession of the entire consciousness, not just the motor relays. Hence why you, Blitzangel, could not be possessed."

"I'd like to get Drift back in here again to answer some more questions," Wheeljack said and Perceptor nodded in agreement.

"I would like to talk with him, too," Blitzangel realized. Poor Drift, she had left him alone for so long. He had to spend that awful night by himself. She was really a horrible friend to him. "Where is he?"

"He left the Ark sometime last night," Ultra Magnus said as he stepped into the room. "I put a security detail on him."

"I'm sure he loved that," Blitzangel muttered.

"It's for the sake of safety," the base commander insisted. "They aren't meant to intrude on his personal space, just keep tabs on where he is. Drift has been driving around the back roads all night. I imagine he's had a lot to think about."

"Can you have someone shoot me his coordinates when he gets near the base?"

"I can." Ultra Magnus nodded. He continued to watch the femme, obviously having something else to say. "I'm sorry about last night-"

"And can you also get rid of that rule where no one is allowed to approach me?" Blitzangel cut him off. "It's stupid."

"...I can."

"Thank you." With that, Blitzangel was out the door, offering no further opportunity for conversation with the base commander or anyone else.

* * *

Drift had spent the entire night in auto mode, meandering down any dirt road and ditch he happened upon. It would have been easier driving in the city, but he didn't want to deal with the traffic and the lights. He wanted the quiet and the starry sky above him. It was as close to being in space as he could get. In space, he could think.

Space was a tough commodity to come by these days. Ever since he had awoken in that Autobot med bay, Drift had felt the walls constantly around him. Even though he was outside, it didn't change the fact that he was stuck on this planet without escape. When he was no longer on the move, everything had the opportunity to catch up with him.

Lockdown and Wing, Wing and Lockdown. Thinking about them both made his world feel like it was collapsing on itself, getting smaller with each passing minute. He never meant to think of them- think of any of his team or his past again. Wing's last words to him were haunting. So much so that Drift had even had to leave Blitzangel behind so he could get some air.

She would be okay, he told himself over and over. The Autobots would look after her. If she chose to stay with them, they would always protect her. He wouldn't have to worry about it. It wasn't his job to protect her. Not anymore. It never really was. It wasn't his responsibility.

After the sun came up, Drift found himself low on fuel, sick of being in his alt mode and kicking up dust all over his undercarriage. Often times he forgot about his Autobot tail, keeping tabs on his whereabouts from a distance. But when he heard the scream of those familiar jet engines, he was reminded that anyone could find him at any time.

He was standing on a hill when Blitzangel touched down, staring at both Mount St. Hilary and the city in the distance. His yellow optics seemed glued to the scene. Only after Blitzangel had transformed and landed did Drift tear himself away from the landscape and slowly swivel his gaze in her direction.

"Hey," she greeted him neutrally. "It's been a crazy couple of days, hasn't it? How are you holding up?"

She saw several emotions flicker over the white mech's face, but he said nothing.

"Drift?" Blitzangel asked in a softer tone. She moved closer. "Are you okay?"

His hand snapped out before she could touch him, fingers loosely encircling her neck. Blitzangel froze in her tracks. Drift continued with his intense stare. His hand slid from her neck to rest on her chest plate and he frowned when he felt nothing pulsing underneath.

"You are not," he said in a low tone, "what I thought you to be."

"No, I'm not," Blitzangel conceded.

Confusion and hurt were clear on his features. "What are you? Where did you come from?"

"Well, for starters, where I come from it's considered very rude to grab the chest of a female without her permission," she huffed.

Drift dropped his hand and looked back toward the city. "So, what are you, then?"

Blitzangel nodded in the same direction. "I am- or I was- one of them."

Drift's head swung toward her, optics a bit wider than normal. Blitzangel continued to look at the city.

"I was born on this planet- the usual messy, organic birth- kicking and screaming into this world. And I died a similarly messy death. The Autobots... I don't even know if you could call it saving my life, but they... preserved what I was and put me into a new body of metal. And now, I don't know what I am. I'm no longer human, but by the Cybertronian definition, I have no spark so I'm not really alive either. I am just... what I am."

Drift didn't say a word. The only indication he gave that her confession held any weight for him was when he suddenly sat on the ground. Several minutes ticked by as Blitzangel patiently waited for the neutral to come to terms with what he had been traveling with for the past several months.

"When... when did it happen?" he asked softly.

"When did I die? It was about a year and a half ago."

Drift made a sort of snorting sound with his vents. "And yet I found you clear in another galaxy. You got around pretty quick."

"It wasn't my choice," Blitzangel replied neutrally.

Drift finally turned his head and looked at her. "How old were you?"

"I was twenty-two."

"YEARS?" Drift balked. "Primus, that is so young."

"I was human. We don't live very long, okay? Not compared to you."

Drift was still in shock. "That is SO young! I don't think I have a single part on me as young as you."

Blitzangel sighed. "Yes, I get it."

"So young."

"Are you quite done?

"So... young..."

Blitzangel crossed her arms and sat there silently, letting Drift marinate. It was clear on his face that he was trying to come to terms with something internally. Whatever it was he was doing, it took him several minutes to do it.

"You okay?" the femme prodded after a while.

Drift shook his head. "I'm just... when I think about the coincidence of it all. I found you on Xartin as an ex-Decepticon, but you were born here on Earth with these Autobots. Then we both met on Cybertron. And then, we just _happened_ to crash back here on Earth."

"Tell me about it," Blitzangel agreed. "It feels like it was all..."

"Meant to happen this way," Drift finished for her.

"Don't I know it," she sighed.

Drift turned and looked at her, trepidation on his face. "The moment I saw you, I was drawn to you. I was supposed to take you with me so you could bring me back here and I could find..." He glanced toward the Ark and then looked away again.

Blitzangel sat down next to him, keeping a respectful distance. "The world has a funny way of catching us, even when we think we're running away from it."

"That is what Wing told me as well," Drift said softly.

"Who's Wing?"

"My mentor, my... leader. He taught me everything I knew before I left Cybertron behind. Taught me how to use a sword, taught me how to kill. He instilled in me a certain sense of pride for my people and planet."  
His tone drew toward distaste as if the words were cloying in his mouth. "It was not something I took with me when I was through with it all." Drift looked at Blitzangel. "He was there... last night with you and me and Lockdown in that room. He saved my life."

Blitzangel had trouble recalling. After she had been torn up, she was glitching pretty badly.

"They had both been in that base," Drift continued, "keeping each other stuck there when they died, unwilling to let the other go. When I went offline after the battle, Wing spoke to me and told me this."

That made sense to Blitzangel. She remembered the time she and Smokescreen had tried to get answers from the spirit in that extra room. The first time she had heard voices they were loud and violent. The second time she made contact, the response was calm and the voice seemed to want to help. She kept all this to herself.

Drift was tense as he watched the Ark. Blitzangel had never seen him like that before.

"You don't want to go back in there," she assumed.

"I don't want to go back in there," he confirmed.

"It will be okay."

Blitzangel reached over to touch his arm. Drift immediately withdrew from the touch, jerking his arm away from her. The action hurt her feelings, but she knew she had no right to feel that way. Not when she had flinched at every advance from Drift for the past several months.

"Fair enough," she said, trying to make her tone as neutral as she could. "You can see why I'm not always eager to tell people about myself."

The emotion she was unable to hide caused Drift to turn around as she left.

"Angel..."

She was already sliding down the hill away from him. "If you need anything, I'll be around."

Hound, who had been on Drift detail, met her at the bottom. He probably hadn't heard any of the conversation; he was never one to impose. The green Autobot was just close enough to keep tabs and nothing more.

He caught Blitzangel as she slid down the rocky slope toward him. This time, he had to use his whole body to catch her instead of just an offered arm. Hound was apprehensive about being that close, but Blitzangel hugged his arm as it wrapped around her. Suddenly she was monumentally thankful that the Autobots who really knew her accepted her for who and what she was.

Blitzangel pulled back with a smile on her face. "I'm going to make some snacks," she announced.

Hound's expression lit up. "Save some for me?"

She grinned. "Always."

* * *

The space Blitzangel had used the year prior for cooking in was unfortunately piled almost to the ceiling with scrap metal and building supplies, most likely as a result of the construction of Autobot City nearby. Cliffjumper, after hearing what she was trying to do, confirmed that most of her equipment was probably still somewhere in the room. He helped her dig through the refuse to see what could be recovered. Springer, who watched the two with a confused expression for several minutes, finally offered to help as well. With the small Autobot to root around and the bigger one to lift the heavy machinery, Blitzangel found one of her boiling vats and most of her make-shift cooking equipment.

They all dragged what they could into the spacious rec room and Blitzangel got to work cleaning and repairing everything.

"What are you doing?" Kup asked while she was fiddling with wires. His tone suggested that he had been asked by someone else, most likely Ultra Magnus, to see what she was up to.

Blitzangel held up the warped metal with her pliers. "Thanks to you guys tossing your crap wherever you want, you bent the coils of my cooker."

Kup gave a wordless grunt and took it from her. He dutifully got to work bending the metal back into shape so the thing would stand and heat properly. Blitzangel went about raiding the supply room for ingredients to make a large batch. In a few hours, the cooking pot was filled to the brim and several Autobots had drifted in and out with curious or hopeful expressions.

Everyone was disappointed, however, when the batch turned out to be a flop. None more so than Blitzangel herself. Even now, she still wasn't sure how Cybertronians perceived smell, but even she was somehow aware that the brew had turned rancid and was repelling everyone in the vicinity. After properly disposing of her failure and airing herself out, Blitzangel stalked back to her tiny room and flopped on the floor. Her personal computer was not among the artifacts taken from her room by the twins in her absence. It was possible it was still in her old quarters. She scratched at a section of the wall near the floor and managed to remove it. Her hand-held was still inside.

Flipping through the screens with her finger, she found all her old notes from when she first attempted her energon recipes. It felt so long ago. Like a lifetime ago. So much had happened since then. She continued to recline on the floor, reminding herself of the mistakes she had made. It was a bit disconcerting to find that her computer memory did not recall her recipes correctly. She was lucky she had second guessed herself and made hard copies. If they were the only things permanently distorted through all the mental chaos she had endured, however, Blitzangel counted herself lucky.

With the help of her proper notes, Blitzangel started a second batch, a smaller one, in case it, too, turned out tragically. However, with the right increments and temperature, the batch began to look like it was supposed to. By the time she was pouring it into tiny, bite sized cubes, the bots who had been scared away the first time were poking their heads back in again and helping themselves to a sample.

Arcee seemed more delighted with the idea of cooking than the product itself. It seemed the two femmes shared the same domestic streak. The pink Autobot begged to be allowed to make the next batch under Blitzangel's guidance.

Halfway through, the purple femme noticed Jazz had snuck in sometime when she hadn't been looking. He lounged on a bench in the back of the room, one foot propped up on the seat and arm draped across the back. Blitzangel left Arcee with instructions to keep stirring and watch the temperature.

Jazz smiled at her as she approached. There was plenty of room on the bench, but Blitzangel opted for sitting right next to him. Jazz fully accepted her decision, moving his arm to her shoulder and tucking her in closer. She settled against him, her head on his shoulder. His hand wandered over to hers and Blitzangel gave a soft sigh.

"You look better today," Jazz said softly.

She smiled, watching their feet propped up on their heels side by side. "I feel better today."

"That is certainly good to hear. Ya had us worried for a long time."

Blitzangel played her fingertips over his, letting her thin digits wander in between his larger ones. "I know."  
She remained quiet awhile as her expression turned thoughtful. Then she turned her head to look at her friend. "I think I'm done, Jazz."

He gave her an unsure smile. "Done with what?"

"I think I'm done with it all. I'm done feeling sorry for myself and being sad and angry. Even with what happened yesterday, with such a horrible night, I don't think I can do it any more."

Jazz pulled her a bit closer, his cheek resting on her forehead. He didn't like hearing she'd had a bad night. Knowing Sideswipe and Sunstreaker made sure she didn't spend it alone was his only consolation.

"You know, I was like that when my parents died," Blitzangel continued in a quiet tone. "It hurt so much worse than this. I couldn't eat, I couldn't get out of bed. All I could do was just lay there and cry for... I don't even know how many days. Then one morning, I was done. Emotionally, I had nothing left to give. I had properly mourned and then I was ready to move on. I think here, right now, it's kind of the same thing."

Jazz gave her an extra squeeze. "If it's what you needed, baby, then I'm okay with it. I'm glad you're feeling better."

She suddenly giggled. "I like it when you call me baby. It gives me warm fuzzies."

Jazz chuckled deep in his throat. "Does it now? I'll have to keep it for those special occasions then."

She looked down at her hand intertwined with his. "Is Prowl mad at me? For what I did to him the other day?"

Jazz thought back to the night before. He had been there when Prowl was brought back online after  
Blitzangel had tricked him and turned off his systems. To say the police car had been irritated when he found out all that had transpired while he was out was an understatement. But Jazz was also sure Prowl was over it by now. Pretty sure.

"Nah, he's not mad. I mean...he may have been a bit put out, but he's not going to stay mad at you, Angel. In fact, he was worried about you last night, so I'm sure it's all been forgotten."

"I'm going to go check on him. Is he in his office?"

"Probably. He likes to go there to sulk- I mean..."

Angel stood and kissed his helm. "I'll make sure he isn't still sulking then. Go get some snacks."

Jazz grabbed her hand as if not ready to let her go yet. "I will in a minute. You come back and find me if you need anything."

"I'll be sure to come to you for all my needs," she said playfully as she slipped her hand out of his.

First, she went to Arcee to see how the latest batch was going. The pink femme was already pouring the mini cubes and they were looking the proper color.

"Make sure you set some aside for those on duty right now," Blitzangel requested.

"Don't worry, I'm going to make another batch," Arcee replied with a smile. "I want to make sure I have this recipe set to memory."

"Great. I promised Hound specifically that I would save him some. He's stuck on shadow detail."

"Gotcha. I'll make sure I keep some safe for him."

"Thanks, Arcee. Call for me if you have any questions. I gotta go check on some bots. I'll be back later."

Blitzangel walked off down the hall, feeling a little giddy over her interaction with Arcee. The pink femme was so nice and Blitzangel was proud of herself for not gawking at her once, though she really just wanted to stare at the femme all day. Arcee was such a stark contrast to all the males in the base. Blitzangel was dying to ask her what it meant to be a femme in her culture and yet, it was something she never could.

She was reminded again how badly Drift had taken her secret and she considered him to be far more openminded than most. Arcee seemed a bit on the conservative side in Blitzangel's opinion. The pink femme would probably have a spark attack at the news. Blitzangel now knew hers was a secret she would need to safeguard for the rest of her life if she were to live among the Cybertronians.

The door to Prowl's office was shut, so she knocked.

"Is this important?" Prowl's voice responded sharply from inside.

"Well, no," Blitzangel said to the door. "I'm sorry if you're busy. I just wanted to see you for a moment. I could come back at a later time if that would be better for you."

The door slid open, revealing Prowl positioned at his desk. "This time is fine. What can I do for you?"

Blitzangel had a doubtful expression at his words, but sat down anyway as the door closed behind her.  
"I'm sorry if you're still mad at me for taking you out of commission the other day. I was doing what I thought was best."

Prowl visibly vented air. "It's not your job to do what is best. It's my job- my responsibility- to keep you and everyone else here safe. You did not trust me to do my job."

"In a way, no," she admitted. "I was pretty sure if I told you there was a ghost running around the base, possessing everyone, you wouldn't have believed me. Just as Perceptor and Wheeljack- even Red Alert- didn't believe me. You can't tell me I'm wrong. Your first thought would be that there was something wrong with me. Admit it."

Prowl's silence was his confession.

"Beside, I don't see anywhere that it's against the rules for me to protect those I care about when I have the knowledge and the ability," Blitzangel continued. "If I'd left you online and you ended up doing something far worse to me you'd be in an even worse mood today."

Prowl remained stiff and frowning, but did not argue.

"I love you, Prowl," she tried with her most charming grin and disarming shrug.

It worked. Her statement caused his shoulders and door panels to relax visibly.

"I also brought you a peace offering." Blitzangel handed him a data pad across the desk.

Prowl stared at it blankly. "What is it?"

"It's my report," she said nonchalantly.

"Report on... yesterday?"

"Report on what's been happening with me for the past year."

Prowl clutched the data pad, his optics widening.

"I've been working on it since I came to Earth."

The black and white Autobot opened his mouth, but nothing came out. A series of emotions passed over his features. Strangely, fear was predominant. Then, determination settled over him.

"Sit there," he ordered as he got on his radio. "Jazz, come to my office please."

"Why do you need Jazz?" Blitzangel wondered, feeling the scales tipping out of her favor. "What's going on?"

"Please stay there," Prowl reiterated. "It will be just one moment."

Blitzangel sat there obediently, fidgeting with her fingers while she waited. She wasn't sure if Prowl was still cross with her or what was going on. Jazz stepped in after a few minutes, looking just as curious as to what was going on. He had two cubes in his hand.

"What did you do this time," he asked her, only half joking.

"Please lock the door behind you and sit," Prowl said in his authoritative tone that meant all business.  
Jazz set one of his cubes on Blitzangel's armrest. "Got you something. I'm pretty sure you haven't refueled in a while, and I'm not talking about energon candy."

"Thank you," she said quietly, taking the cube. No, she hadn't in a while. Not since she over energized a few days ago. She still had enough energy to get around, but if she wanted to go flying anywhere, she was going to need to refuel her tanks.

Jazz gave her a nod and went to attend to Prowl's bidding. He locked the office door before sitting himself in the other chair with his cube. "So, what are we doing here?"

"Blitzangel just gave me a report of her previous activities for the past year. She was just about to relay it all to us in person as well."

Jazz almost dropped his cube as he stared at her.

The femme dropped her jaw in bafflement as well. "I was not."

Prowl held up the data pad. "I will be reading this as well, but I think we deserve to hear it from you, first."

As if realizing she was suddenly trapped, Blitzangel glanced anxiously around the room. "Here? Now? I don't want to like this." She looked over at Prowl across his stately desk. "I feel like I'm in trouble. Especially when you call me Blitzangel. It's like you're my mom using my full name."

Prowl frowned and opened his mouth to speak.

"Prowl, just get your chair over here," Jazz barked at him. "This ain't an interrogation. Angel's just going to share some stories with us, so let's get in all cozy."

"All cozy" consisted of Jazz and Prowl situating their chairs in front of her. Even though they were closer, knees to knees with each other, it still felt a bit like an investigation to Blitzangel. She sipped at her energon to ease her discomfort, but it wasn't helping too well.

"You know, the two of you ganging up on me is quite intimidating," she admitted.

"Aw, Angel." Jazz leaned in closer. "That's not what we're trying to do here, I promise." He put a hand on hers and found it to be trembling nervously. "Yeah, this isn't going to work. Come here."

"What...?" was all Blitzangel got out as he took her wrist and pulled her to her feet.

Jazz sat his own cube on the desk behind him and then pulled the feminine figure into the chair with him. It was designed to accommodate bots up to the size of Ultra Magnus, so the two of them managed to snuggle in together.

"There, is that better? It's more comfy. I'm right here. And if you want Prowl..." Jazz reached over her shoulders and grabbed Prowl's chair. He grunted as he tried to pull it closer, but the other SIC didn't move.  
Prowl scooted closer himself to oblige. "...he's right here, too. Good?"

Blitzangel clutched her cube to her chest and sat for a moment. Jazz's engine rumbled next to her. It wasn't enough to be considered a purr, but it was a calming sound. Prowl even dared to reach over and take her wrist, rubbing it with his thumb. She smiled a little.

"Yeah, this is okay."

"Okay, now start at the beginning for us," Jazz said.

"Please," Prowl added in a soft voice.

Blitzangel vented air thickly as if preparing herself. She sipped a bit more of her energon. The beginning. It didn't take long to think about where it all started. That was all she had been thinking about since she began working on her report.

"I was walking with Tracks when the Decepticons surrounded us. I'm sure he filled you in on how that happened. One of the Decepticons beat him up pretty good. It was Wildrider, I think."

Prowl and Jazz exchanged quiet glances. Before she was taken from the Ark, she'd had no idea who the Stunticon even was. What else had she learned in the company of the Decepticons?

"Then a Decepticon, I think it might have been Soundwave, held me down and put something on my forehead. It was like, I just stopped processing instantly."

"Bombshell's cerebro-shells," Prowl confirmed.

"Yes," she agreed. "That's what it was. I wasn't aware of anything else until Megatron took it off me and I was just standing in the Nemesis. It was full of Decepticons."

She took a long drink and then launched into her tale of living with the Decepticons. She told them about Megatron's confusion about her existence. He kept trying to figure out what she was, what purpose she held for the Autobots.

Megatron had pitted her against two of his Decepticons, most likely expecting them to provide entertainment to the rest of the troops while they broke their Autobot toy. When Blitzangel- Crystal-fought back, she was taken offline only to be brought back online again sometime later and given a chance to escape. Crystal then found the opportunity was just another way for Megatron to play with her. It had been all a ruse and he shoved her captivity in her face to break her and make her do what he wanted.

Then Megatron put her to work.

"I knew every inch of the Nemesis from top to bottom by the time I left," she said almost proudly. "It would have been great intelligence except... I hear the Nemesis isn't around any more."

"Oh yeah, we scrapped it good," Jazz confirmed. "You were already gone at the time, but we did it for you.  
Most of us were pretty wound up by the time we broke in, having to leave empty handed twice in a row really twisted our gears. So we trashed the place."

"Aw, I appreciate it," Blitzangel said as she patted his arm. "I was honestly not aware of any rescue attempts at all. Megatron made sure I had no idea what was going on, not even what day it was. I think he actually kept me offline for quite a while. One day I was able to sneak a look at Soundwave's computer and the date was far later than I thought it would be."

"That makes some sense," Prowl put in. "We raided the Nemesis shortly after you were taken. Megatron let us search the entire base and we didn't find anything."

Blitzangel shuddered. She had already been informed the Autobots had indeed come after her two different times. Still, hearing it right from these two almost made her want to cry again.

"He's such a bastard," she choked out. "All that time, he did everything he could to make me believe you didn't even try to find me. He wanted me to break- to give up- and I did." She vented air shakily. "I honestly believed I would be spending my last days in that place. I should have believed in you more."

Jazz made her squeak as he hugged her to him fiercely. "Baby, I'm sorry. We should have tried harder. And we should have believed in you, too. I should have, anyway. Prowl was the one who never stopped trying."

Blitzangel looked over at the police car who avoided her gaze self-consciously. "So stubborn," she said affectionately as he grabbed his hand.

Prowl didn't say anything, but he squeezed back and didn't let go for several minutes.

Blitzangel didn't go into the politics of the Nemesis and how she got caught up in them too much. It was still too tiring to think about. Prowl may have thought it to be interesting. He could read a better report of it on the data pad.

She also never went into her more personal feelings and interactions with the Cybertronians of the other faction. She wasn't sure why. Maybe it was because she thought the Autobots listening might not want to hear that part or even get mad at her for finding any humanity, so to speak, in her captors.

So she glazed over most of it, cutting to her last escape attempt, leading to the shuttle Starscream attempted to steal. She relayed the seeker's plot, to use the ship to follow an unknown power source, and how Megatron took over said plot and packed them all in a ship and went out into space.

Blitzangel told them about the asteroid that was found. The two Autobots were so enthralled with this part, it felt too intense to sit next to them. She went back to her own chair so she could see their faces as she spoke.

The asteroid had been more than the Decepticons bargained for when it turned out to be a semi-cognizant mechanical being. It had trapped them all inside itself, splitting them up and attacking. Even Megatron and his elite were forced to flee. Most of the shuttle was left behind and detonated to destroy it. She had been left behind as well, but Skywarp had attempted a last second rescue.

When Prowl asked her what the asteroid was exactly, Blitzangel could only shrug. Maybe Megatron and Starscream knew more about it, but all she knew was what she had witnessed herself. And when asked why Skywarp went back for her, again she had no answers.

"I don't really remember how I got back to Cybertron," she then admitted. "Everything gets fuzzy right around there. I must have made it somehow. And I know I took some damage here." She pointed to the side of her head, where Ratchet had reported she had been shot through the optic. "But exactly when I was rebuilt and why, I don't know." She shook her head. "A lot of that part is... fuzzy. I just get flashes of memory here and there."

She clenched her fists on her knees. "I know the Decepticons made me one of them. I know they told me to hurt others- kill them. I didn't have any choice. It was like I was locked away in this body and it reacted on its own. Any order I was given, the body would just do it. I was aware of it sometime, but it was like drifting in and out of a dream. Like watching someone else do these things and my own emotions were kept apart from me. I couldn't even make myself care. I had no power."

Blitzangel suddenly wondered if that was sort of what it was like being Soundwave.

Jazz grabbed her hand to catch her attention. "No one blames you, okay? Whatever you did while under  
Megatron's control, it wasn't your fault. We all know you're kind and sweet and you would never hurt anyone if you had a choice."

She gave him a thankful look. "I wasn't able to get my free will back until the Deceptifemmes kidnapped me."

Prowl was even more on the edge of his seat. "Yes, I would like to know about them. Where they are stationed, their numbers, how-"

He was cut off when Blitzangel held up her hand. "Do you want me to keep going or do you want to read it in the report?"

Prowl forced himself to calm down. "My apologies. Please continue."

Jazz was amused, but kept quiet.

"They had an undercover agent in the Decepticons," Blitzangel continued, "a femme who was disguised as a mech and had worked her way up as Shockwave's lieutenant. That's how they knew about me. Her cover was blown when they kidnapped me- or, I guess rescued me. They got me out of Decepticon hands and reversed much of the programming. They even found me a new voice box." She scratched at her throat.

"Megatron took my old one. That's why my voice is different."

"I like it," Jazz purred. "I like a deep, sensual femme voice."

Prowl glared at him and Jazz raised his hands in surrender.

Blitzangel continued on. "When they brought me online I had no access to any previous memories. I had no idea who I was. Or who I had been. They kept asking me where I had come from. Was I Autobot or Decepticon before Megatron got hold of me? I had no idea. I certainly didn't realize I had once been human at that point."

She indulged Prowl at that that point, going a bit into how the femmes lived, how poor and low on energy they were. Prowl's curiosity about their way of life made it easier to omit certain things such as her strange encounter with Vector Sigma, which she still wasn't sure wasn't all just an hallucination. She had to tell them about Soundwave. Otherwise, her escape from the Deceptifemmes wouldn't make any sense.

"I couldn't leave him there to be tortured and killed. I didn't even know why. Maybe there was still Decepticon programming in me, but I knew I would rather risk my life to get him out then to stay and let it happen. Catscratch infected me with a virus and we were both hurt badly by the time we managed to get to the surface."

She did not mention Darkstar. It didn't seem like anyone's business.

"I don't know how long I dragged Soundwave's heavy can around on the surface, but eventually, Megatron found us."

Prowl noisily vented some air. "It should have been us," he growled. "We should have been keeping a constant vigil."

"You can't watch the entire planet," Blitzangel countered. "Now hush."

When Megatron found them, Blitzangel explained, he no longer wanted her, damaged as she was, and he left her there. She continued to wander until she dropped from lack of fluids. The next thing she remembered was waking up in the Female Autobot med bay, full of anger and frustration and with all her systems going haywire.

"It was like chaos inside my head. Everything hurt. But after the virus ran its course, it was a blessing. It somehow knocked everything loose. I knew there was something wrong with me. I knew I wasn't who the Decepticons tried to make me become, but I had so much anger and aggression in me and I couldn't control it. I didn't trust anyone any longer. I didn't want to trust the Female Autobots. I didn't know them.

"Then the pirates came." Blitzangel covered her mouth with her hands. A shudder ran through her. "They took everyone. It was horrifying. If anything was my fault, that was. And it haunts me."

"Several femmes still managed to escape capture," Prowl offered. "They now live with the mechs in Iacon."

"It's good to have them back, too," Jazz added. "The others, they're Autobots. They'll stay tough. We'll find them again."

Blitzangel just nodded and relayed how the pirates separated out the femmes they had kidnapped and sold them. She and the Autobots Chromia, Twilight, and Bayonette were sold to the planet Xartin where they competed in gladiator style combats for the profit of their owner.

"I was still trying to get things back in order. The fights were distractions... constant distractions. They gave me an outlet for my anger, but it was just so easy to lose myself in them and I was close to just letting myself surrender to the anger and just fight until I had nothing left. Then I met Drift. He told me he used to fight in the ring, too, and there was a light at the end of the tunnel if I was willing to stick with it for the long run. He was only there for a day. Then you guys came."

She shrugged. "I'm sorry I was a pain in the ass. I'm sorry I put you guys through so much. I didn't want to go back with Sideswipe, or anyone. I just wanted to forget everything and let myself completely melt away."

"But we made you come home anyway," Prowl said softly.

"Yeah, and I couldn't handle it. I was already mad because my programming was so messed up. Being around you guys just made it worse. I thought you had abandoned me even though I still didn't want to believe it. I was confused and scared. You guys wouldn't leave me alone and I so badly needed that time to get away from everything. I needed to think in a place where I wasn't constantly being attacked or cornered. That's why I ran away with Drift. He didn't know I was on Cybertron, I broke into his ship myself and begged him to take me off the planet. He was so very kind to let me come with him."

She continued to explain about Drift, emphasizing how he had helped her. He gave her the space and patience she so badly needed to get herself in order.

"He has really taken such good care of me. I really want to do anything I can to help him, too. He needs a  
ship," Blitzangel looked at the two SICs imploringly. "Can we get him one?"

Both mechs gave her a pained expression.

"Spaceships don't exactly grown on trees, Angel," Jazz said.

"Maybe if you found an old broken one, I could fix it for him," she ventured. "That is, if I can get him to still talk to-"

There was a knock on the door.

"We're in a meeting." Prowl's voice sounded slightly annoyed.

"It's me," Ultra Magnus said from the other side.

Prowl and Jazz looked at each other, not wanting to open the door but knowing that here on Earth, the mech outside outranked them both.

"Oh, let him in," Blitzangel said as she hopped up to her feet. "That's fine."

Prowl reluctantly pinged his office door open and Ultra Magnus stepped inside. He saw the three chairs huddled in a circle, two of which holding Prowl and Jazz while Blitzangel leaned over them to get something off the desk at their backs.

"Hey, we're kinda in the middle of something here," Jazz said.

"You heard most of it," Blitzangel insisted. "You can read the rest in the report."

She approached Ultra Magnus who was trying to step forward at the same time. They both abruptly halted awkwardly, toe to toe. Blitzangel found herself taking a step back. She couldn't get used to how big he was.

"Here, I wrote that report you wanted. I was telling these guys about it, but I'd appreciate it if you sent them each a copy."

Ultra Magnus paused and then took the data pad from her. The sturdy device suddenly looked so dainty in his massive hands.

"Thank you," he said softly. "I'm sure this was difficult to write."

Blitzangel nodded, looking stiff and uncomfortable, though that didn't stop her mouth from running on its own. "Um, I want-" She paused and glanced back at the two black and white Autobots. "I want to go back to Cybertron. You know, whenever you go back or are sent back... just whenever. But I want to go."

The office went quiet.

"Are you sure?" Ultra Magnus dipped his head to try to catch some part of the femme's gaze. "You told me this was your home."

Blitzangel worked her mouth up and down as if she wasn't sure herself why she said it. Or she knew the answer and she didn't dare tell him.

"I just... I think I should. Excuse me."

She quickly slipped out of the room, leaving the mechs to themselves.

Ultra Magnus looked down at the data pad and then over at the other Autobots. "She always leaves whenever I walk into a room."

Jazz smirked. "Well I'm sure most the femmes find ya big and scary. You gotta be cute and cuddly like me."

Prowl smacked him in the chest with the back of his arm.

Ultra Magnus frowned and excused himself.

* * *

Drift still didn't want to return to the Ark as the day passed by. He continued to wander on foot. It was a strange, disconcerting feeling to have nowhere to go and no other mode of transportation but himself. He missed his shuttle. He missed having something to call his own, a place to put his feet up. He missed Blitzangel, or at least he missed what he thought she was. Even then, he missed her company. It was something he'd had very little of while on this planet. Now he understood why.

The Autobots here knew her better than he did. They understood what she really was when he had been left in the dark. He was still the outsider. But he had always been the outsider. This time should have been no different. Still, it weighed on him more than he was prepared to admit. His reaction to the truth about what she was had hurt her, even if she tried to pretend it hadn't. No matter what or who she was, Drift had never wanted to hurt her. She seemed wounded enough as it was.

"Drift!"

Drift was surprised to hear his name at all, let alone in a feminine voice. He had heard the new Autobot drive up, but paid little attention. He assumed it was merely the replacement for his current shadow. He abhorred having a tail. It just made him feel more and more pathetic to know that someone was actually watching him mope around the countryside, too chicken to go back to the base.

The gray form of Bluestreak's auto mode had driven up and Clarissa stepped out of the passenger seat before calling his name.

"Hi Drift, it's so great to see you," she beamed.

Bluestreak was already driving off to replace Hound as the security detail.

"Hello Clarissa," the white mech greeted her neutrally.

"I've been so worried about you! I'm glad you're okay. Remember, I was at the base when suddenly the whole place went mad and Wheeljack told me you went berserk on Blitzangel? I didn't believe him for a second, there was no way you would hurt her and I told him so. But they still made me leave the base while they conducted an investigation and I haven't been allowed here since.

"I was going out of my mind, thinking about you. Those stupid Autobots wouldn't tell me anything until today. Bluestreak filled me in, driving me up here. He said that there was like... a ghost of a Decepticon? A spark of one? Something. And it was possessing everyone and making them hurt each other and it's just- that's the craziest thing I've ever heard! It's like it should be in a horror movie or something!"

She paused when she noticed Drift continued to watch her without emotion and was not attempting to participate in the conversation.

"Sorry, I've been talking to Bluestreak all morning. I sort of adopted his pace. But I'm really glad everything is okay now. It's not fair that the Autobots think they have to babysit you. This wasn't your fault."

"They are just doing what they feel that have to," Drift said.

"Yeah, but it's a total drag. You don't look happy at all. Wanna go for a drive or something?"

Drift looked out at the wilderness and the dusty roads that meandered around. He had already driven all up and down the area and his tanks were running on empty. He wasn't in the mood to spend any more time in his alt mode.

"I just want to walk for a bit."

His tone calmed his young companion and her face held an empathetic understanding. "Can I walk with you?"

"If you like."

Drift set a slow pace so Clarissa could keep up, though the walk was very brisk for her. He expected her to keep chatting at him, but the teen had slipped into a companionable silence.

After a few minutes, Drift glanced down at her, watching her silently. "Clarissa, how old are you? In Earth years?"

"I'm almost 18." She looked at him curiously as Drift's expression saddened. "You okay?"

The white mech shook his head. "That is just... so young."

* * *

Blitzangel walked faster and faster toward the exit of the Ark, feeling like the walls were caving in on her. Did she just say that she was going back to Cybertron in front of those three? It was an idea that she had been toying with for a while, but the weight of the decision did not hit her until she had spoken it out loud. She didn't know how she knew this, but she had the feeling that if she went back to Cybertron, she would not see Earth for a very long time.

Was she insane? Did she really want to leave her home planet? Why did she just blurt it out like that? She should have thought about it more before opening her big mouth. Blitzangel craved space. She craved the sky. It was an alien urge that came from her new alt mode. It ignored her previous agoraphobia and caused her to pine for the infinity of the firmament and everything beyond.

The light of day nearing, the femme slowed down so as not to seem like she was fleeing with fear like some bipolar nitwit to anyone who may be watching. With all her self control, she strolled out of the base and into the sunlight, preparing her systems for a more casual takeoff.

"Hey beautiful, what'cha doing?"

Blitzangel halted her jets before they could fully ignite and turned toward the base of the mountain. Four mechs she was not too familiar with were lounging around. She remembered them from the drinking contest with a somewhat fuzzy recollection. She knew they were the Arielbot team, but she had no idea what their individual names were.

"You going flying?" The one who addressed her had an orange face- most of his head was orange- which really made him stand out from the others. He also extruded a charisma and cockiness the others didn't seem to possess.

"Yes, I'll be out for a little while," Blitzangel said politely.

"You want some company? I heard you told Ultra Magnus you like it when bots approach you now. I'm

Slingshot, by the way. These are my brothers. But they don't have to come with us."

"I see..." Blitzangel tried to gauge them as a group. They looked friendly and harmless enough. Especially the ones who hadn't been talking. But males in a group made her uneasy. "Maybe another time?"

"I think it would be fun to fly with you sometime," said the red and white one, Air Raid, as he stepped closer. His voice was so much softer. He reminded her of Bluestreak, though he spoke more slowly. He still had that little brother quality. "I've never seen a femme who could fly."

"You'd never seen a femme at all until Arcee," said the red and gray one, Skydive, as he fiddled with a data pad. "So this makes all of two for you, Air Raid."

"I know," he shrugged. "But don't you think it would still be fun?" He looked at Blitzangel with big, puppy dog optics.

She backed away. "Yeah, maybe sometime. I just can't do it right now."

"You should be hanging out with us anyway, not those lame land-bound Autobots," Slingshot added.

"We're so much better than they are."

Slingshot and Air Raid advanced even as she retreated. Blitzangel backed right into a taller body. It was much larger than her and a bit wider than the other Arielbots.

"I'm sorry. Are my brothers bothering you?" asked Silverbolt, the Arielbot leader. "They're idiots, ignore them. You can go." He gave her a shooing motion to send her on her way.

"Shut up Silverbolt," Slingshot barked. "No one asked you to butt in! I'll fly with whoever I wan-"

The rest of his statement was cut off by screaming engines that caused even the Arielbots to cover their audials. Within seconds, Blitzangel was nothing but a black dot in the sky.

"Fine," Silverbolt grinned. "If you think you could keep up with that, you be my guest."

Slingshot just grumbled something quietly as he stalked off.

* * *

Earth was so full of blues and greens. Plant life and animals. There were always birds, always things growing, always weather changing. The Cybertron Blitzangel could remember was everything Earth wasn't. It was stagnant and monochrome, industrial and dead. For the hundredth time she asked herself, did she really want to leave this? Yet, even as she questioned this, looking down at the city below, a place she could not enter, she reminded herself that leaving Earth was not leaving an entire planet. It was leaving only the bits of the planet where she dared to go. Whereas Cybertron was her size. It was meant for her form and she would be able to go where she wished without any worry for her size compared to that of the natives.

It wasn't as if she would never ever come back. Blitzangel reminded herself the Autobots wouldn't deny her access to her home planet if she wished to visit it again. Prowl, she knew for certain, wouldn't stand for it. Beyond a doubt, if she asked him to go home, he would make it happen. That thought made her feel warm inside. It was a good feeling to trust again.

So she would go to Cybertron for now. Something was pulling her there, telling her it was time. There was also curiosity niggling at her. All she had seen of Cybertron was the inside of dreary Darkmount with its dimly lit corridors and skulking guards. When she was let outside, it was only to ravage the border of Autobot territory. Any view of Iacon she received was from inside the tower, behind bars.

There was a part of her that wanted to taste true Autobot life inside Iacon and see what it was like. It was the same thing she had looked forward to before the Decepticons had kidnapped her. It was the ultimate goal: to get a body that made her look Cybertronian and then go live among them.

Blitzangel had paused among the clouds in robot mode to play and float among them as she thought about her decision. Did the Autobots know how fun it was to play in clouds before they decided on wheels only? She would definitely have to come back sometime and play in the clouds again after she had seen all there was to see on Cybertron.

Something blipped on her scanners. It was coming directly from below, not part of the city, but wilderness with a few buildings, like some sort of station. The signal she was getting seemed to be attempting to mimic an SOS but it was disjointed and weak. Blitzangel slowly let herself drop out of the cumulus to get a better view.

One of the buildings below exploded, belching fat clouds of smoke into the air. Blitzangel transformed to jet as she descended. If people were down there, she would rather they see her jet form first than a flying robot racing toward them. She would only reveal her true self if she saw someone needed help. She circled the explosion, scanning for organic life forms. She should have been looking for the other kind.

As she skimmed low, a laser shot was fired from the ground somewhere, incinerating her wing as she was banking. It put her into a spin, throwing her out of control and caused her to careen toward the ground.

Blitzangel transformed into root mood before she hit. It allowed her to tuck and roll, taking on less damage from the collision. Still, the ground was jarring and unforgiving. It rattled her circuits and bent her shoulder joint when she hit.

Rolling to a stop, Blitzangel struggled to get up. She was disoriented as her systems tried to assess the damage while recalibrating her balance.

"Well, well. Took you long enough to get down here," she heard a raucous voice say. "I thought we'd have to set Dead End on fire before we'd finally get your attention.

"I don't know how well that would work, Wildrider," came Dead End's pessimistic drawl. "I'm sure I wouldn't burn that well."

"Nonsense! You'd burn plenty well! I'd explode you real good, promise!"

"Woo hoo, boys! We sure bagged ourselves something pretty, didn't we?" Drag Strip said as he approached.

Blitzangel was still trying to get her bearings. The Stunticons, all of them, great. Was it really so much to  
ask to go for one whole day without being attacked by something?

"I've never seen anything like her," Breakdown said warily. The entire team was encircling her now. "What if she's some kind of trick?"

Motormaster walked up behind her and effortlessly picked up Blitzangel by her neck. "What sort of stupid trick would this be? She's so small, what could she possibly do?"

"They have their ways," Breakdown insisted, looking toward the sky. "They'll catch us all eventually."

"Not the aliens thing again," Drag Strip sighed. "I've told you again and again, we're the only aliens on this planet." He walked up to the struggling femme and poked her in the side with his blaster.

At that time, Blitzangel's systems finally rebooted back to normal and she had enough sense to kick the yellow Stunticon's weapon away. "Drag Strip, you idiot!"

The Stunticons all backed up when she spoke.

Breakdown gave a shrill shriek. "She knows your name! The siren of space has come for you! Drag Strip, run!"

Blitzangel managed to swivel around enough to land a good kick on Motor Master's shoulder joint and he dropped her. She landed, crouched on the ground, before slowly rising to her feet.

Drag Strip had stolen Dead End's weapon and was waving it around like a nervous lunatic. "What the slag are you? How do you know who I am?"

Blitzangel approached them. The mechs leaned back a bit, but allowed her closer.

"Go like this," Blitzangel told Breakdown, holding both hands out, palms up.

Breakdown copied her motions. When Blitzangel slapped her palms on his, he immediately returned the gesture like old friends. Just as he had been taught by-

Breakdown's jaw dropped. "You! You're the little maintenance bot!"

"Holy Primus in the Pit," Wildrider marveled. "Look what happened to you."

"What does that mean?" Motor Master asked skeptically. "Has Megatron come back? Did he send you to retrieve us?" He didn't quite feel in the mood to go back to Megatron just yet. Doing their own thing was so much more fun.

Blitzangel shrugged. "He's still on Cybertron, as far as I know."

"Forgotten again by our leader," Dead End lamented. "So typical."

"Yeah, I wanna go to Cybertron and do some damage," Wildrider said. He was poking at Blitzangel who slapped his hand away in annoyance. "We haven't been there since we were sparked. Everything's so boring here on this mud ball. I bet we're missing all the fun."

Blitzangel just shrugged. "I don't know what he's doing. Haven't seen him in a long time. I don't work for him anymore."

There was a pregnant pause among the Stunticons.

"So you saying you're back to palling around with the Autobots again?" Drag Strip asked flatly.

Blitzangel felt the conversation suddenly swerve in a bad direction. She put up her hands in defense. "I'm not an Autobot. I'm neutral. I'm not part of this."

"Meaning you're not Decepticon."

Suddenly, all weapons were pointed at her again.

"Sorry doll," Wildrider said as he charged his blaster. "Them's the rules."

Blitzangel adopted her old, hesitant and timid stance. The one that kept her hunched and worried during her stint on the Nemesis. "I see." Her blades suddenly snapped out and, in the blink of an eye, she sliced.

* * *

Drift was still hanging out with Clarissa. She had managed to weasel some stories about his space travels out of him and the white mech was grateful for the distraction. He didn't mind entertaining female company while talking about himself, either.

He paused in the middle of a story when he received a call from the one bot he was sure had nothing to say to him.

"It's Angel," he told Clarissa. "Hold on."

The girl squealed inside. She had a feeling the two were having some sort of problem. Maybe it had something to do with him attacking her, even though it wasn't Drift's fault. Either way, she was hoping she would be able to witness them getting back on friendlier terms.

"Hey," Blitzangel's voice came over the radio. "You busy?"

"Not too much. I'm actually glad you called. I keep thinking about earlier and I'm sorry. Can we talk about it?"

"Yeah, I'd like that. But first, I need your help."  
Drift turned concerned. "What happened? Are you okay?"

* * *

Blitzangel stumbled over the dirt and weeds, the smoke of an exploded building billowing at her back. She was dented and damaged, covered in splatters of energon. Most of it was not her own.

"Yeah, I'm... still functioning anyway," she told Drift over the radio.

In her wake, she had left five damaged Stunticons. None critically, but enough to make them not so much in the mood to follow her.  
_  
They're all such idiots._

"Listen, I'm grounded and I'm too far away to walk. Can you tell the Autobots to send someone to give me a ride?" Ugh, she hated asking for a ride. It made her sound like a little kid.

"Sure, Angel. Hang on. I'll come get you myself if I have to."

The thought of being strapped to Drift's hood and driven home made her laugh. "Okay, you do that."

* * *

It took almost an hour for the Autobots to reach Blitzangel's location, even with Prowl's sirens at the head of the convoy, clearing the way. By then, Blitzangel had moved far enough from the battle scene to give the Stunticons plenty of time to get away from any pursuers.

Prowl pressed even harder when he saw her, leaving Ultra Magnus' heavier form behind. The police car slid on his brakes, transforming and running to her, grabbing Blitzangel by the shoulders.

"Are you okay?"

She winced at the touch and Prowl apologetically removed his hands. "Yeah, the damage isn't too bad. I just can't fly.. And I won, too."

"Won against who?" Prowl demanded.

"Stunticons, but they're idiots. Don't even worry about it."

"ALL of them?" Prowl asked, his voice rising higher. "Where are they?"

"Well they're kind of gone now, Prowl. They got about an hour's head start on you. But if you really want to try to find them, I suggest going in that direction." She pointed to the sky where a thin pillar of smoke was still leaking from the explosion site.

Prowl frowned in that direction and then looked at her again. "You shouldn't have left the base."

"I'll leave the base whenever I damn well please. No one knew that this was going to happen and I think I did just fine considering the five to one odds."

The SIC gave her a look that indicated he didn't think he deserved the amount of attitude he was receiving.

"Fine. Please get in the trailer." He led her to the back of Ultra Magnus' trailer and opened the doors. "I have some junior medics waiting for you."

"Huh?"

Two pairs of arms, colored red and yellow respectively, grabbed her and pulled her inside. Blitzangel found herself tangled in a mess of long limbs and medical tape as the twins got to work clumsily patching her together. All three were talking at once, Sunstreaker yelling at her for fighting Decepticons, Sideswipe trying to ask her if he was doing it right, and Angel barking at both of them that most of the energon on her body was not a product of her own wounds and they should stop trying to tape her back together.

She was vaguely aware of another white body climbing into the trailer before the doors were closed and Ultra Magnus rumbled on his way back to the Ark. She assumed it was Prowl. Once the twins had settled into wrapping her up, Blitzangel glanced at the other mech and found that it was actually Drift. He had been watching her quietly, somewhat amused. He smiled at her when she noticed him. She smiled back.

Upon reaching the base, Blitzangel was escorted directly to the medical bay where First Aid took one look at her, dented, covered with energon and medical tape, and dropped the tool he had in his hand.

"Are you kidding me?" he demanded angrily. "I just patched you up less than 24 hours ago!"

Blitzangel just grinned at him. "Now you're starting to sound like Ratchet."


	18. Chapter 18: Last Days on Earth Part 2

Leaving a review for this chapter could actually get you a ticket in a raffle. Visit the club deviant art page for details. Since FanFiction took out all links on people's profile pages for some reason, you can find the link by going to SPUniverse dot deviantart dot com.

Rising Generations

Chapter 18: Last Days on Earth Part 2

Despite her smart retort in response to the usually soft-spoken medic's frustration, Blitzangel really did feel badly that First Aid had to repair her constantly. The last time had not been entirely her fault, but it was certainly more so than any of the others had been. In penance, she offered to clean the medbay for him. Truth be told, it really needed it. The place was much more cluttered than it had been under Ratchet's watch. Just another lineament to compare poor First Aid to. Blitzangel tried really hard not to mention Ratchet's name when offering.

Ratchet and First Aid were not the same mech and it really was unfair to treat either as such, no matter how used to Ratchet everyone was. Ratchet was almost anal with how he kept his work space, even when it was located in a downed space ship. His medbay was his pride and he kept it running like a well-oiled machine. First Aid, however, did not have the luxury of the med bay being his only burden. As a member of the Protectobots, First Aid also had a responsibility to his team. The poor mech had two full-time jobs and only so much time in the day to do everything. As such, the little things were neglected.

Blitzangel was currently stationed under the rotating table, tightening the gears. She remembered the last time she had fixed the thing over a year ago. It was the only rotating table they had in the Ark so it got plenty of use and the mechanisms wore out quickly. Beside her, Drift's white and gray feet shuffled by with a huff of air.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic about it," Blitzangel said from under the table. "A little work isn't going to kill you."

The white mech paused, a square container of scrap metal in his hands. "It's not that it's work, it's that it's boring work. If I had a choice, I'd be down there at Autobot City, not here cleaning."

She knew part of it was his new discomfort with the Autobot base, but she decided to pretend with him that that wasn't the issue.

"You are welcome to go work construction once we're finished here. First Aid spent a lot of time repairing both of us ... especially you. The least we can do is help that poor guy tidy up. He's so busy."

Drift let out some general grumbling noises as he shuffled to the back.

Once finished with her task, Blitzangel washed the grease from her hands. She looked about the room, feeling pride at how much cleaner and organized the place was. All the metal chips and fluid stains were gone from the floor, the tools put back in their places and all table surfaces cleared. The femme recalled with a bit of amusement how much Wheeljack hated this sort of treatment in his lab. What a pity. It looked so nice when everything was clean.

Sounds of clanking in the back caught Blitzangel's attention and she went to check on Drift. The back was more of a lost cause in the cleaning department. It was full of giant hunks of scrap metal waiting to be used for whatever makeshift repairs were needed. The Ark wasn't exactly a factory of Autobot parts, especially when they were first cut off from Cybertron altogether. With constant damage accrued from Decepticon encounters, Ratchet had been forced to get creative with what alloy materials he could find on the organic planet. It wasn't his original function to be a blacksmith, but Ratchet spent many an evening pounding out parts from scratch when it was needed.

The piles of random scrap metal were necessary to running a med bay on Earth. All that could be done were meager attempts at piling everything more neatly and sweeping the floor a bit. At least they tried their best.

As she perused the back, the purple femme found herself a little hidey hole among the refuse reminiscent of her first bed on the Ark. That first space was completely gone now, used for whatever project Ratchet or Wheeljack had at the time. But this was a bit like it.

Blitzangel crawled in and sat in silence, back braced by the wall and feet almost touching the other side. She thought back to that very first night. The idea of living in a giant's world was strangely more frightening than living the miniscule and brief lifespan of her origin. Now she was someone else entirely. She had been all over the galaxy, seen different life forms her old self could never dream of. Most of the aliens she had encountered were the size she was now. Cybertronians weren't the giants. Humans were just so very small in the scope of the universe. It really was quite advantageous for humankind to be stationed in such a remote corner, away from the rest of the bigger, meaner universe.

For a moment, Blitzangel wanted to revisit her old self and just remember that first night, curled up in the dark, wondering what sort of future there was for her.

"Room for one more?" Drift asked as he ducked into the tiny space and tried to wriggle in.  
Blitzangel scooted as far as she could to give him room. Drift's wide bulk just barely managed to fit, his knees almost poking into his chest. Blitzangel thought he looked rather comical like that.

"So what are we doing here?" Drift asked, hugging his legs in order to fit. The metal at his back groaned.

"Just thinking," Blitzangel said as she slumped a bit lower. "I was remembering how it felt to be suddenly stuck in this world with no way back and no idea what was going to happen."

Drift chuffed out some air as he looked at the ceiling. "I'm sorry it happened to you. Though if it makes you feel any better, you were a convincing Cybertronian. You had me fooled."

Blitzangel knocked on her chest. "This makes sure I don't fool anyone from Cybertron for very long. The Decepticons saw that inside I was empty and they thought me no more than property. A puppet to reprogram to their whims."

"I got news for you. Even bodies with sparks were programmed to their whims," Drift said.

"There will be Autobots who will see me the same way, just an imitation of life. It's a secret I must keep to myself. I hate tricking people- bots- but I will have to just so I'll get the same amount of consideration as everyone else. You won't tell anyone about this, will you?"

"I'm a bit offended you even asked," Drift smiled regretfully. "If anyone knows about keeping secrets, it's me."

"I had to make sure," she apologized. Then she added. "I'm going back to Cybertron. I'm not sure when, but soon. Whenever any of the Autobots go back. I've asked them to help you get a ship but..."

"No, no," he interrupted. "That's okay. I don't want to owe the Autobots a whole shuttle's worth. But I do believe that going back to Cybertron is a good idea. I think I might know of a place where I could get my hands on something spaceworthy out there."

"So you wouldn't be staying long," Blitzangel surmised with reluctance.

"Probably not." A shrug and then a rub to the back of his neck. "Maybe, I don't know. I don't really... belong there anymore."

"I can understand that feeling," the femme said softly.

"Yeah, you can."

There was a span of silence between them.

"I have some things I need to do before I leave," Blitzangel said. "I guess... business to take care of before I say good-bye to this planet."

Drift looked at her. "Do you have..." He searched his data bank for the right word. There was no Cybertronian equivalent to the organic term. He had to settle for English. "Family here on Earth?"

"Uh, yes and no. My parents- creators- were killed a couple years ago in an accident. I have extended family, but no one I talk to on a regular basis." She chuckled mirthlessly and rubbed her neck. "Hell, I doubt any of my estranged cousins even know I'm gone. I let myself slip off the radar when my parents died. I don't know why I did that, I just wanted to close myself off for some reason.

She paused and let her head drop against the metal wall. "How easily the world went on without me. I was the perfect candidate for something like this to happen. It feels like the universe had this all set up."

Drift chuckled. "Yeah, there's a lot of that going around. Maybe Primus is up there having his fun with us, plotting paths we still can't see."

"Maybe." Blitzangel stretched her legs. "So as I was saying, I may need some time to say good-bye properly to this place. I need... some closure."

"Closure, huh?" Drift ventured.

"That means you might not see me for a while. I'm sorry. I keep leaving you behind. I'm a horrible friend."

"It's okay, I was one, too." He held out his hand to her in an offering of apology. "Shall we call it even?"

Instead of taking his hand, Blitzangel hugged his arm and snuggled in close. Drift couldn't help but think he liked this better. Though, now that he knew the truth, he was painfully aware there was no extra sparkbeat from her chest as it pressed against his limb.

"So what's it like?" Drift then asked. "Being flesh and then being metal?"

"I don't have the proper words to describe it. Every way you experience the world is taken from you and you're put in this... shell that feeds you data and tells you what it's like on the outside. You feel like a prisoner in your own body. As hard as I tried to get used to it, there was always something wrong about merely getting up every day. I wouldn't tell the Autobots this ever, but the Decepticon reprogramming was almost an act of mercy in disguise. If I hadn't been given the opportunity to forget who and what I was..."

She vented and shifted against him. "I don't know, maybe I still would have been okay. Maybe the upgraded body the Autobots built for me would have helped to fix things. All I know is that it's easier now. I'm comfortable in this body. I feel like I could live the rest of my life in it if I had to." Another sigh. "However long that will be."

Drift made a soft noise. Not so much with his vocalizer, but with the whirs and clicks of his system. "I'm sorry your first life was so short. No one should have to die that young."

* * *

Blitzangel and Drift walked out of the newly cleaned medbay together. They didn't get far, however, before they were stopped in the middle of the hall by the base commander himself. His bulk almost blocked out the entire walkway.

"Blitzangel, I was hoping I could speak with you about this report." He held in his hand the data pad she had given him the day before.

"Oh," she balked. "Yeah, I guess we could do that."

"Did you have other plans?" Ultra Magnus pressed.

She rubbed her arm. "I was going to go out in a bit, but it can wait."

"You're taking Drift with you?"

Blitzangel looked over at the white mech. "Not unless he sprouted wings in the past twenty seconds.

"Wish I could," said Drift with a shrug.

"I suppose I could speak with both if you since each of you were present."

"You want to talk about the seekers again," Blitzangel surmised.

Ultra Magnus nodded. "If you don't mind."

She beckoned him to follow with a finger. "Come on, let's discuss this in detail."

The femme led the three of them back to Wheeljack's lab where she had to finagle a writing board from Perceptor. They were all covered with his calculations related to the floating mass in the storage unit.

Blitzangel noted that Drift was pointedly staying away from Lockdown's captured essence. The white mech had been sticking to her closely since he had dared to come back into the Ark. She didn't really blame him after what had happened and what was still possibly floating around. Blitzangel didn't say anything about it and allowed Drift to stick as close as he liked. There was no need to expose his insecurities to the Autobots.

Once she was able to persuade Perceptor to allow her to erase one of his boards, Blitzangel got to work drawing three seeker-like figures. Ultra Magnus had yet to ask her any specific questions since they got there, but she knew what he was looking for. Her report was lengthy, but vague on details in several areas. She figured a broad overview of her adventures would settle any generic Autobot who got hold of her report and she could fill in more personal annotations as they were requested.

Ultra Magnus had asked her about the seekers before; now she was ready to give him the full report.

"Three seekers," she said as she wrote their names under each figure. "Sunstorm, Acid Storm, and Slipstream. Mech, mech, femme." She jabbed each form with her finger as she listed their genders.

"A female seeker," Wheeljack commented from the back. "I don't think the Decepticons ever built one of those."

"They didn't build this one either," Blitzangel stated as she looked at her drawings, trying to picture the seekers in her processor. She went over how they looked, how they sounded, their mannerisms. "These three didn't come from Megatron's army. They weren't even built on Cybertron."

"And how do you know that?" Ultra Magnus asked.

"Yeah, how do you know that?" Drift wondered.

"Slipstream said that she was designed partially from me and from those who were on the asteroid. She said it belonged to her master."

"Wait a minute, what asteroid?" Drift demanded. For a moment, he thought he was completely in the know when it came to the three seekers that attacked him. Now he was suddenly out of the loop.

Blitzangel sighed and looked at Ultra Magnus. "Please give him a copy of that report. I don't want to explain it all again."

The base commander nodded, though kept to himself the fact that the neutral would receive a decidedly edited version. "So the reason they look like seekers is that they were based off of the designs from the trespassers on their master's property. So who built them?"

"When they attacked, Sunstorm said he brought salutations from the 'Unmaker,' but I don't know what that means."

Drift was pressing his mouth tightly. "I've heard that title before. A long time ago."

"As have I," Ultra Magnus agreed. "We're dealing with a creator with a warped sense of humor."

"Or maybe we're dealing with the real thing," Drift ventured.

Ultra Magnus frowned.

"What's the real thing?" Blitzangel wondered.

The other two stayed silent. It was taboo to say the name, in private or within company.

"They're talking about Unicron," Wheeljack said casually without any superstitious qualms. "He's supposed to be the opposite of Primus."

"And Primus is... your god, right?" Blitzangel clarified.

"Right, as Primus is the creation of life, Unicron is supposed to be the end. The Unmaker."

"The Chaos Bringer," Drift added softly with some reverence.

"They say if you say his name enough times, Unicron will find Cybertron, Primus' greatest creation, and destroy it."

"But you don't believe it," Blitzangel surmised.

Wheeljack shrugged. "You can understand the ideas of good and evil deities. Your planet is full of these religions. There's belief in these beings and then there's _belief_. You may believe in your devil, but that doesn't mean you'll ever expect him to come knocking on your door in physical form. Likewise, I don't expect to see Unicron walking through the streets of Iacon, tearing up the place."

"I've heard some say that Cybertron has already felt Unicron's hand," Perceptor said as he stepped into the conversation, "manifested as The Great War. It is certainly by far the most calamitous event to ever hit Cybertron and it left our planet with hardly a leg to stand on. I'm not sure there can be anything in existence that could do worse to it."

"Either way, these seekers mean business," Blitzangel said to get them back on track. "Whoever built them knew what he was doing. The extra abilities on these guys are rather frightening. Sunstorm was the one who burned Drift's back. He didn't need any weapons; he just touched him and everything melted."

"I have to say that's the most pain I've felt in a while," Drift confirmed.

Perceptor's optic ridges shot up, the bot intrigued. If Wheeljack were capable of expression, he probably would have appeared very excited.

"We're talking some sort of self contained heat source or... something." Blitzangel's hand hovered over the board like she was going to write down some calculation, but her mind couldn't grasp the science of it. "You couldn't really feel the heat until you were right next to Sunstorm. Anything he touched melted right away, but it certainly didn't impair or damage any of his own functions." Her hand lowered. "I really don't know how it's possible to build such a thing."

"What about this one?" Wheeljack asked, tapping on the drawing of Acid Storm. "What can he do?"

"Just like his name. The acid would come from an unknown source and never damage his own structure while it ate up anything else he touched. Including me. As for Slipstream..." Blitzangel paused as she studied the last doodle, tapping her finger right below her lip. "She's got energy blades similar to mine, but... there must be something else. It doesn't make sense to modify the others without giving this femme at least one trick up her sleeve. We just haven't seen it yet."

She drifted off in her own thoughts for a while. Slipstream had known it was her- Crystal, now Blitzangel- that had been on the asteroid, even with her new identity and design. How did the seeker femme know that? What else did she know? What else did all of them know? Just because another's schematics were used to build these mystery seekers, it didn't mean there was some sort of connection between them, was there?

Gentle hands on her shoulders brought Blitzangel from her thoughts. A glance at white paint made her assume it was Drift. But Drift's hands were black. The ones on her shoulders were white.

Prowl's grip, his blue optics serious. Kup was behind him, thoughtfully looking at the board with a frown etched into his face plates. The two had probably heard at least part of the conversation. Blitzangel had been too preoccupied with her own private musings to notice their entrance.

"What do you think they're after?" Prowl asked. His voice was soft as if the question were only for her.

Blitzangel pondered her answer. None of the three seekers really gave any motive for their attack or mentioned where they were going when their paths crossed with Drift's shuttle. Their claim to be creations of an "Unmaker" was the only information they provided for their origins or their mission. If they really were frontrunners for a mythical being, one who existed to end it all, there was only one destination.

"I have absolutely no evidence to prove this, but if I had to make a guess, I'd say they're looking for Cybertron."

"But do you know this for sure?" Ultra Magnus asked.

"No, it's just my best guess."

"Wouldn't these jokers have already been to Cybertron by now?" Kup asked, his voice grouchy.

"I don't think they had any sort of space jump technology on them," Blitzangel replied. "They were going there the old fashioned way. It's going to take them a while to get there under their own power."

"Any normal seeker would run out of fuel by then," Perceptor said. "If they are truly of seeker design, they don't have the type of fuel tanks built for long term space travel. Their systems aren't very fuel-efficient."

"Not if they're like the asteroid," Blitzangel's mouth said automatically.

Her processor flashed back of its own accord to more mundane memories of her past, things she didn't often visit even in reflection because they held no significance to her at the time. But that was the thing about a robotic mind, it retained everything and brought to the surface incidents that often seemed unimportant when first experienced.

Starscream. On Cybertron, he would sequester her in his quarters after her drill practice with the seeker team. He did it for the sole purpose of pissing off Shockwave, for he had no other use for her. She would be left to stand in a corner while he worked on whatever project kept the flight commander's attention at the time. Starscream never talked about their collective strange encounter on the asteroid with his fellow Decepticons, but he kept a thorough collection of charts and data in his quarters.

Sometimes, he would discuss his thoughts with her. Mostly, Blitzangel surmised, because he liked to hear himself talk.

"This wormhole technology is still beyond my reach," he had once said within her vicinity. "How could that asteroid siphon energy from the host so far away? If I could figure this out, I would be unstoppable. I could ship energy anywhere I wanted, go wherever I wanted without having to worry about refueling. But the science of it seems nearly impossible. As if there's an even greater force-" Starscream had cut himself off there, unwilling to further that thought, and went back to work in silence.

"The asteroid was parasitic in nature," Blitzangel explained. "It took its energy from a host source, allowing it to search the galaxy for that host without having to refuel. Starscream theorized that energy transfer was made possible via wormhole. If it's the same creator for these seekers, they too could possibly roam the galaxy without having to seek out fuel."

"Okay, I want to know about this asteroid," Wheeljack cut in. "And exactly when did you and Starscream go on this field trip to find it?"

Blitzangel looked at Ultra Magnus. "Give them a copy of the report too. In fact, pass it out to whomever could benefit from it. I trust your judgment."

"Fine." Ultra Magnus nodded.

"So are we seriously considering the idea that we have harbingers of Unicron headed for Cybertron as we speak?" Kup suddenly blurted out. "Do we really want to go down this road? I mean, I'm sure the kid is giving us what she knows and all, but the possibility that this is really what it seems is ridiculous."

Blitzangel just shrugged, not taking any offense. This action finally brushed Prowl's hands off her shoulders.

"Either way, I'm going back to Cybertron the next time you guys power up the space bridge. I feel like I need to go back there. You guys do what you feel you need to do."

She turned to look at Drift and nodded to the door. He agreed that it was time to exit. The two of them walked out, leaving behind the sounds of Ultra Magnus and Kup discussing this new information among themselves.

The femme and the neutral traversed the halls of the Ark quietly, each immersed in their own thoughts. Drift moved closer to Blitzangel, feeling as though he were being watched. Phantom footfalls seemed to trail behind him.

"So, where are we going?"

The unexpected question made the already twitchy Drift lurch forward and hug Blitzangel from behind. As if she could protect him from all his demons, inside and out. Blitzangel jumped as she was grabbed, but instantly settled and looked behind her.

Prowl had been trailing the two of them silently. He did not look happy about Drift's arms around the purple femme, even if it was just a nervous reflex. But Prowl wasn't the one who had asked the question. Appearing out of nowhere, as he often did, was Sideswipe, curiously bringing up the rear.

Blitzangel tightened her mouth at all of them, wondering when she became the leader of this impromptu parade.

"We going anywhere fun?" the red Autobot continued with sparkling optics.

"I don't know where you guys are going, but I'm just going to the rec room for energon," Blitzangel said flippantly in hopes everyone else would lose interest.

"Yeah, but where _after_ you refuel?" Sideswipe insisted.

Prowl looked like he wanted to know that as well.

The femme huffed some air. "I'm going out," she said flatly.

"Going out where?" Now there was another Autobot in the hall. This one was tall and yellow, standing in front of them with his arms crossed over his chest. The last thing he wanted was to attempt to patch her up again in the back of a moving trailer.

Blitzangel sighed long and deep, her shoulders going limp in acquiescence. "Nowhere," she surrendered. "I'm not going anywhere."

Sunstreaker looked ready to call her bluff and challenge her statement, but he found no fight in the femme when he looked her in the face.

"Alright then," he said, the edge gone out of his voice as well. Then he found another target for his irritation and glared at Drift who was standing too close to the femme for his comfort.

Drift raised an optic ridge at him, but didn't back down.

Before the air could charge with machismo, Blitzangel had already surged forward to continue down the hall, leaving the males with nothing to be territorial about. Not caring who decided to follow, she continued on her way to the rec room for sustenance. The place was mostly empty and she was certainly fine with that. Maybe relinquishing the previous orders to not approach her wasn't such a good idea if they were now all going to trail after her like this.

Hound was the only Autobot in the rec room at the time, settled in the back near the energon dispenser. His only companion was Mercedes, sitting cross-legged on the table and plucking away at her guitar. The melody was tuneless for a while as the human girl fiddled with her chords and tightened her strings until she coaxed the sound she wanted from the instrument.

Blitzangel quietly gave them careful consideration as she neared the energon dispenser and began filling a cube. She couldn't help but be cautious whenever a human was near. Half was the fear of being recognized for the fraud she was by her fellows. The other half was merely worry she may hurt something so fragile. Maybe the Autobots were used to being around beings so small. She wasn't. Everyone else in the universe was the same size as her, sometimes bigger. Humans were their own size, alone in the cosmos in that aspect as far as she knew.

She could hear the human talk to Hound as she thoughtfully sipped her energon and pretended she wasn't paying attention.

"You know, Hound," Mercedes said as she began strumming her instrument with more purpose and melody, "whenever I hang out with you, all I want to play is old hippy songs from the 60's."

"Is that good or bad?" the dark green Autobot asked with an amused expression.

"Neither, just... you have that sort of feel about you. Probably because you remind me of camping and singing old songs."

"Speaking of which, are we going camping again this summer?"

Mercedes winked as she found the song her muse wished to play. "I'll make free time if you will, Hound."

Blitzangel took a long gulp of energon to fill her tanks as she listened to the music. Her mother always had a penchant for old songs. Blitzangel knew well the song as the human sang.

_Someone told me long ago  
There's a calm before the storm, I know  
And it's been coming for some time.  
When it's over, so they say  
It will rain a sunny day, I know  
Shining down like water._

_I wanna know  
Have you ever seen the rain?_

The song always reminded her of dusty summer roads whenever she happened to hear it on the radio. But when the chorus hit, Blitzangel was suddenly assaulted with a bout of nostalgia. Her computer processor liked to shove random memories at her at any time it felt like it. But they had all been from her duration with the Decepticons, the times when her memory was the worst.

This. She was suddenly 11 years old, sitting in the back seat of her fathers old Cadillac convertible, hanging her head over the side and watching the wheels kick up dust while her thin red hair flew in her face. No matter how wild it got, she didn't care. She loved the feel of that summer breeze.

Her parents sat in the front, her dad with his shades on, her mother with her hair pulled under a kerchief to save it from the ruthless ride. She couldn't see their faces; they didn't turn around. But she could feel the warm summer air on her skin, wriggle her toes in her shoes and smell the plant life as they drove through the country. For one brief but poignant moment, she remembered vividly what it was like to be human.

The half cube of energon fell from her hands and shattered wetly on the floor. There was a tight pain in her chest that wasn't physical. Her body tried to gasp, just once, as if had the ability to breathe.

Sunstreaker, who had been getting himself sustenance after her, jerked back from the splash, his face in a scowl. Irritation was always his first reaction to anything. When Blitzangel instantly dropped to tend to her mess, his anger quickly averted.

"Angel, you okay? Angel?"

She didn't answer him. She just wanted him to shut up so she could hold on to that lost point in time for a bit longer. Everything was so easy then. It felt like life got too hard too quickly.

Sunstreaker put his own cube on top of the dispenser and squatted down to her level. "Angel?"

"I'm fine." Blitzangel forced her own irritation down and answered. Maybe she was more like Sunstreaker than she cared to admit. The music had stopped, everything had stopped as all eyes and optics watched the femme gather the largest shards of the cube and deposit them in the waste receptacle. Sunstreaker righted again as the femme stood and moved to find something suitable to use to clean. She purposefully kept her back to everyone as she searched the drawers.

When Blitzangel turned around she hoped to find everyone giving her some space. Instead, Sunstreaker was practically standing at her heels, his brother behind him and Drift also moving in. All three mechs looked concerned as that male protective streak set in.

"Oh my gosh," she blurted out, feeling like the room itself was closing in on her. "Back up, all of you. Move." She waved her arms in front of her, forcing the mechs to move away from her vicinity or get swatted. "Space. I need space."

Sunstreaker held up his hands in surrender. "Just checking on you, that's all."

"I don't need the cavalry any time I drop something on the floor. Go sit down." She pointed to the nearest table.

"You don't want to tell us what's wrong?"

Blitzangel looked the yellow Autobot right in the optics to let him know she heard the question but she wasn't going to answer it. "Go sit down," she said again.

"Fine, I'm going." Sunstreaker finally let it go. He retrieved his energon and pointedly sat at a different table than the one he was ordered to.

Sideswipe followed suit, but Drift lingered behind. The white mech's presence was far less smothering than Sunstreaker's. Drift asked the same question wordlessly with curious yellow optics.

"Go get some energy," was all she said in reply. "You're probably running on empty."

In truth, he was and it was somewhat on purpose. The Autobots weren't the only ones harboring paranoia about his presence. It made Drift feel safer to not have the energy to do much damage to anyone even if he wanted. Not to mention just being in the Ark made Drift feel jumpy. Too many loose spirits around. His common sense was the only thing stopping him from running out. It told him he had been alive a very long time and never had this sort of thing happen to him. Now, the chances of it happening again were extremely slim, yet, it was hard not to worry about it.

There was also the matter of his pride to deal with as well. He didn't want to cringe outside the Ark in front of all these Autobots who continued business as usual in the Ark no matter what happened within its walls. Drift wouldn't let himself be a slave to his own fear. He would tough it out. Though maybe it would be best if they got back to Cybertron sooner rather than later.

While Blitzangel hurried to clean her mess, Drift poured himself an energon cube, fully aware that he was taking resources from a faction he was not a part of and didn't like it one bit. He took only a minimal amount and then looked around for a proper seat. Joining the red and yellow Autobots didn't seem like an option. He had a distinct feeling they didn't care for him too much. He could sit with the other Autobot and the human. She was playing music and that intrigued him. Or he could sit by himself and hope that Blitzangel would join her when she-

He looked around and found that he had been contemplating his seating choice for too long.

"Slag. She already left."

"She's pretty fast," Hound said conversationally while the twins flat out ignored him.

Drift took that as an invitation and sat with Hound and Mercedes, sipping his energon. "She's antsy with walls around her," he said, suddenly compelled to make excuses for her. "Typical flier. It didn't help that we were all getting in her space either."

"Sometimes I'm not sure if I should be jealous of your male to female ratio," Mercedes grinned as she plucked at her instrument. "It's sweet you all care about her," that earned her a glance from Sunstreaker, "but I'd be telling you to back off too when you start ganging up three on one."

"It's hard to help it," Hound said casually, though he was also looking in the direction the femme had fled. "That femme's been through a great deal in a short amount of time and none of us really know what to do for her."

"Maybe she already knows what to do for herself and she doesn't need you guys to do anything. She just needs your support."

Drift leaned back in his chair and downed his energon cube, optics dimmed in thought. "Maybe."

* * *

Blitzangel meandered strategically around the base so as not to appear she was trying to leave at the first chance she got. She thought she was quite sneaky around the video cameras, looking calm and aimless, but her plan didn't work. When she finally sauntered out of the large exit for take off, there was an black and white Autobot waiting for her, his arms folded across his chest.

"Where are you going?" he asked as if she had just been caught sneaking out the window on a school night.

The femme's posture slumped. "Prowl, can you please stop stalking me? I appreciate the concern, but it's getting a little... weird."

He instantly relaxed his body language as well, dropping his arms to his sides. "I am not stalking you. We have cameras all over the base. I can see what everyone is up to, not just you."

"But I'm the only one who's going to get grilled if I try to leave."

"You left on your own yesterday and we had to bring you back in a trailer," Prowl reminded. "I'm not doing it again today."

She huffed. "Right, no ride home if I get hurt this time, I got it."

"Angel..."

"I wasn't _trying_ to get in a fight yesterday, Prowl! I wanted to go out and come back in the same condition as when I left just as much as you. But there's some things you can't plan for."

"Exactly, which is why I worry about you going out there. Especially alone."

"I'm sorry, Prowl, I can't help it. I get restless in here. I just... I need to fly sometimes, okay?"

Prowl actually understood it. The Autobots had air types in their forces, too. Those with wings always got a little antsy when they had been on the ground- especially underground- for too long. It was the same for him and his fellow land designs. He would start to get the itch for speed when it had been too long since his tires had dug at the ground. The alt mode wasn't just a mode of disguise for his kind, it was a part of them.

"And I'm sorry if you don't like it," she continued. "But I can't really help that-"

Jet engines rumbled high in the air and Blitzangel cut herself off to look to the source. A military jet flew over their heads- neither Decepticon or Autobot. Probably just another pilot testing their wings from the air force training base near by.

At first, Prowl assumed Blitzangel's sharp reaction to the sound was one of fear. He suspected it reminded her of Decepticon jets and unpleasant times. But then he thought maybe he saw a look of longing in there as well. It was much more difficult to read her face with that optic band replacing her expressive optics.

"Angel," Prowl said, catching her attention again. "I'm not going to stop you, just answer my question. Are you leaving because you feel the need to run? Or do you have somewhere you want to go?"

As soon as her gaze was on him, that strange expression left her face. She gave him a half of a smile. "Mmm.. more the latter than the former. How's that?"

"Okay. If you could, please do one thing for me before you go." He started for her, moving more into her space than he usually did.

Blitzangel backed up a step or two as her bubble was invaded. "What? What are you doing?"  
Prowl grabbed her wrist and pressed her forearm against the side of his own. "Sync radio frequencies with me. Do you know how?"

Blitzangel nodded. She and Drift were synced. He was the one who showed her how to do it. Syncing frequencies wasn't the same as using a collective radio channel, such as what the Autobots used on the Ark. Each individual had a personal frequency that was unique only to them-like a fingerprint. To sync to one another's frequency was to not only get a copy of that fingerprint, but to be able to recognize that system within a certain vicinity without even looking at them first. It was something her old body could not do and Blitzangel was a bit surprised her new one even had the capability.

Prowl's arm brushed hers and their frequencies synced, learning each other. It was a wireless process. Blitzangel knew physical touch or even this close proximity wasn't necessary. Two Cybertronians could sync their frequencies from across the room. But she liked being this close. Syncing felt like getting to know someone a little better. Her systems learned the sound, the feel of another body's energy. It felt almost intimate.

To sync with Prowl even made her smile somewhat. But a glance to his serious face and she tried to school her enjoyment of the moment. Prowl was a bot who always had walls. And walls within walls. Even though she knew he had been better about those walls since she met him, especially around her, she knew there were still shields up all over him. Maybe more than he could ever take down. This made her feel like she could at least get a little bit closer to him. Nor did she mind the fact that he could now hail her on the radio at any moment of his choosing. She would take it.

"There," Prowl announced when they were done. "You can call me personally if you need any help. Though I would prefer if you didn't get in any such situation."

"Can I call you even if I don't need help?" she asked with a grin.

"Yes," he said with all seriousness. It made her feel warm a little bit.

"Be careful," Prowl continued with a sharp edge in his voice. "There's not a lot of Decepticons left out there, but you don't seem to have any trouble finding them for some reason."

"No Decepticons," she promised and she hugged him.

He wasn't an easy bot to hug, with the awkward shape of his form, but Blitzangel somehow managed it. His arm found its way to her shoulders and he gave her a tight squeeze for a bare moment and then let her go.

"It will be getting dark soon," Prowl then said, glancing at the orange sky as the sun was dropping.

Blitzangel backed up a safe distance from him. "I'm not afraid of the dark."

Her engines ignited and Prowl still had to back away a bit as she took off into the sky, transforming into jet mode as she did.

Prowl remained where he was for several moments, watching her until she was only a dot in the sky. Then he stiffened. His door wings were twitching as if someone were watching him from behind. He turned and found Drift standing casually at the mouth of the Ark.

"Hey," the neutral said as he nodded to the SIC. "Now that she's gone, I was wondering if there was something I could talk to you about."

* * *

The main research and development building of Cyber-Tech was like a second home to Carly. After all, she spent more waking time here than she did at her house. Especially now that her only son was old enough to take care of himself and none too interested in spending his teenage years hanging out with his parents. Unfortunately, her poor neglected husband was often the one who got the short end of the stick when it came to her passion for technology.

Luckily, he was working late himself on some bigwig business complex. As supervising architect, he was also required to work long hours. Tonight, he would make sure everything was going according to schedule. But Carly liked that about her husband and herself. Both felt free to go out and tackle their passions, knowing they would be forgiven for the long hours away. And when they did happen to catch each other at home, there was certainly plenty of passion there, too.

It was after six and most of the employees had packed up and gone home for the day. Carly wasn't yet ready to call it a night. Neither was her companion- a product developed in her labs with the help of extraterrestrial colleagues.

It was a little, stout robot with four wheels and two little pinchers used for hands. The device itself didn't even come up to her knee as it rolled alongside her down the hall. The holographic form it projected from its base, however, was slightly taller than she was and displayed the form of the Autobot Skyfire. Unlike the other Autobot scientists who too easily got involved with their own personal projects, Skyfire enjoyed collaborating with the humans. Not only did he support Carly and Cyber-Tech's efforts for technological advancement and betterment of mankind, he often had his own fingers in several of their projects.

Unfortunately, even the largest building Cyber-Tech owned had trouble adequately accommodating Skyfire's size. Thus, a smaller avatar was created, allowing Skyfire full access to the building. The machine served to be his optics, audials and hands while the mammoth jet remained parked outside.

Carly was currently reviewing their list of new projects with him, which ones were ready to be pushed to further stages of development or production and which ones were to be given top priority. Both were excited with new breakthroughs they had encountered and new ideas that had been brought recently to the drawing table. Carly was texting her husband. It was probably going to be a long night.

Maybe she would be home in time for breakfast, for she was too excited to stop working now.

"Whoa, hold on, Carly," Skyfire said in the middle of their conversation.

She paused and looked at the hologram of the robot. It looked exactly like Skyfire. It moved and relayed proper face expressions as he talked, despite the fact that his physical body was in vehicle mode outside.

"What?" she wondered. "You don't think this one's ready for the next phase?"

"No, it's not that. I... I think I've got someone wanting my attention. Hold on."

Carly gave a puzzled look to the holographic generator as it went dead when Skyfire disengaged. He couldn't have been getting a call from the Ark, his avatar was capable of bringing up the radio conversation so he could talk to it while still using his holograph. That meant there was someone physically at his body. She wondered what they wanted.

* * *

"What? What?" Skyfire demanded at the fist pounding at his side.

Sideswipe jumped back from the white jet. "Whoa, there you are. I thought you had fallen into stasis or something when you wouldn't answer."

"What do you guys want?" the jet demanded of the twins.

Sunstreaker just stood there with a small frown on his face, as he often did.

"We need a ride," Sideswipe said.

"Are you serious?" Skyfire demanded once they had explained the where and why of their travel plans.

"You taking us or what?" was all Sunstreaker said in return.

"Did Ultra Magnus or even Prowl authorize this?"

The twins were silent.

Skyfire let out a sound akin to a sigh, though it was impossible to tell how he was doing it.

* * *

"Are you serious?" Carly barked when the jet finally reported back in.

"That's what I said, but yeah," Skyfire confirmed in a regretful voice. "I'm already in the air."

Carly fought the urge to instruct him not to let the twins bully him around. But he was a big mech. There must have been some reason he agreed.

"That's okay, Skyfire. I'm sure everything will still be there tomorrow morning. I'll see you then, bright and early."

The holographic machine turned off again and Carly pulled out her cell phone and texted Spike once more. Maybe she would actually be home in time for dinner tonight.

* * *

It was dark by the time she got there. It had been a long flight before Blitzangel finally reached the other side of the American continent. Her destination was outside the big city. Neither of her parents liked the rush of New York, nor did she. But for some reason, she still stayed after burying them here. Something wouldn't allow her to let go, tear up roots and leave the graves behind. Not until the Autobots came and she was left without a choice.

The site of the modest cemetery, while not in the middle of the city, was still next to a rural road that saw its share of traffic, even in the middle of the night. Blitzangel flew as close as she dared before transforming and walking the rest of the way as to not attract attention or wake anyone up. There wasn't a single light bulb on the property, but she could see just fine. Her dark colors and the tall trees peppering the area would keep most passersby from noticing her.

While not the largest Cybertronian to walk the Earth, Blitzangel still had to tiptoe around when she arrived, careful not to damage any of the plots as she went. She still knew where to find her parents' headstones, tucked next to each other side by side. As human, she visited them at least twice a year. They were exactly where she recalled them to be.

The night was silent as she stared down at the headstones in the dark. A single car drove by down the main road, lighting the area with its headlights and then leaving everything in darkness again. Blitzangel couldn't help but feel she didn't belong here any longer. Could she even call herself their daughter with what she had become? No matter the origins of her consciousness, she was now as alien as those she lived with. This would perhaps be her last visit to this plot.

It was too quiet out there in the middle of the night. It was hard to speak, to shatter the stillness. But Blitzangel managed to find her voice.

"Hey, um... it's me," she said, quiet and unsure. "Maybe... you don't know it's me. Maybe you don't believe it could be me. Or... maybe you've been watching everything. I like to think it's the latter, that you still know who I really am. And I hope..." She hugged herself as if she were suddenly cold. "I hope you haven't been too disappointed with me."

A cool breeze picked up and rattled the leaves around her. It didn't make her feel better.

"I know I've spent a lot of my time these past few years hiding, pretending that bad things didn't happen. I was afraid and I've made poor decisions. But I want to do better. I want to face what's coming head on now. That's why I have to go. I can't do it here. I have to go far away and I won't be back for a long time. Maybe never. I don't know. But I know it's the right thing to do and maybe... you'll be prouder of me when I do this."

Two more vehicles drove by, but slowed down when they neared the cemetery. Blitzangel would have quickly made herself scarce, but she recognized their designs.

A red and a yellow Lamborghini drove in along the paved trail and transformed when they neared the waiting femme.

"Of all the bots I thought would follow me," Blitzangel said.

"We just thought you'd like some company on such a long trip," Sunstreaker said as he approached.

"Careful!" Blitzangel waved them back. "Watch where you're stepping with those big feet! Show some respect for the dead."

The twins stumbled around at her orders and tore up the grass before retreating back to the road.

"I'll just come over there," Blitzangel sighed. She tiptoed carefully over to them and gave them a calculating look. "How did you guys even know I was coming here? How did you GET here?"

"It was this genius," Sunstreaker said as he cuffed his brother on the back of the head. "You know Sideswipe, he picks ideas out of the ether and he's usually right. And Skyfire took us. He's parked a little ways out."

"Since you wanted to go back to Cybertron," Sideswipe clarified. "I thought when you left, you'd be coming here to say good-bye. Humans do that kind of thing."

And he would have known where her parents were buried. He had been there during their funeral.

"So I guess we kinda interrupted your talk," Sunstreaker said. "You can go finish. We'll wait."

Blitzangel didn't want to say anything more with the Autobots in her presence. It didn't seem right to do it with them around, it felt unnatural. She also didn't know how good their hearing was. If it was anything like Jazz's it was phenomenal and she didn't want them to hear a word of her private conversation.

"No," she said without any conviction. "I'm done."

"Sorry," Sunstreaker said with genuine regret.

She looked up at him, her mouth pressed a little tight and her shoulders shrugging helplessly. Then she walked into him, putting her arms around his midsection. Sunstreaker was surprised for a moment, but quickly hugged her shoulders, tucking her head into his chest.

"I need a few minutes," Sideswipe announced. He stepped gingerly through the grass to the two headstones.

Blitzangel didn't follow, she preferred to remain lulled by Sunstreaker's systems. She also couldn't hear anything from the red twin from her position. Maybe he didn't have anything to say, maybe he just wanted to be there one last time himself.

Sideswipe was making his way back to them when Blitzangel's personal radio pinged at her. She pulled out of the embrace to answer it.

"Yes?"

"Angel." It was Prowl's voice. "I am not stalking you." That made her smile a bit. "But you have been gone for several hours. I just wanted to make sure you were okay on your own out there."

"Hi Prowl," she replied pleasantly. "I'm doing just fine. I'm not even by myself at the moment. I've got-"

The twins both motioned frantically for her not to mention them.

"I'm with Skyfire."

"Really." Prowl's response sounded like he considered that quite unlikely.

"Yes, I am," she insisted.

"Okay, well... I just wanted to make sure you were okay. May I ask when you plan on coming back?"

"Nosy fragger," Sunstreaker muttered lowly.

Blitzangel put a finger to her lips to silence him. "It will still be a couple hours. Don't worry about me; I'm fine."

"Okay. I will see you when you get back."

Blitzangel looked at the twins and grinned as if she were going to tell them a great joke. "Okay, bye Prowl. I love you."

There was sudden but awkward silence on the other line. Then the radio went dead.

Blitzangel was still grinning. "He's so funny."

"I'm sure he knew you weren't the only one listening," Sunstreaker said. "And when did you sync up with him and not with me?"

"I can sync with you right now if you want."

"Ooh, me, too," Sideswipe jumped in. "Ever synced with twins at the same time?" He wiggled his optic ridges up and down as he saw humans do on TV.

"Gross," his brother spat.

Blitzangel was laughing.

In the end, all three met up with Skyfire for a ride home. The jet was more than happy to return to Portland to get back to his own business. He made the trip faster than usual.

* * *

Due to Skyfire's speed and the time zones, they arrived back in Oregon with an hour or two to spare before sun up. At first, everything looked quiet and normal as they descended toward the Ark. But upon Skyfire's arrival, several Autobots began to depart from the base to meet them. Prowl and Jazz were in the forefront which made some of the jet's passengers suspicious.

"What did you do?" Sunstreaker demanded of his brother.

"I didn't do anything!" Sideswipe insisted.

"Well they're not just coming out for fun. You must have done something."

"Not me." Sideswipe paused and both twins looked at Blitzangel.

"I didn't do anything either," Blitzangel said with a shrug. "Prowl actually knew I had left the base."

She strode out of the jet with purpose when he landed, leaving the twins to skeptically follow as they dared. Drift was waiting for them, too, which was strange. So were Bluestreak, Hound, Tracks and Wheeljack. Even Smokescreen was lurking in the back.

"Hey guys, what's up?" Blitzangel asked, nonchalant about her reception party.

Drift stepped forward. "I was thinking about what you said to me earlier in the medbay."

"Yes?" she said carefully.

Drift took her hand. "If you don't mind, come with me for a moment?"

Blitzangel allowed herself to be tugged along, finding she didn't mind so much, her hand being tucked in his. They lived all those months together without any contact, afraid to touch each other. Now she wondered why she fought so hard to avoid it. Despite knowing Drift would never try to attack her, she had allowed herself to live in fear. An infinite caution of everything, a trust in nothing. It had not served her all that well. This- being with her friends, holding hands, talking, smiling- this was so much better.

Still, her emotions bordered between caution and curiosity with what was going on now. Everyone was walking along with her to some spot unknown, obviously in on whatever Drift had planned. Only the twins seemed in the dark and followed the procession hesitantly. They all traveled away from the base and toward the treeline, a few Autobots with their headlights on to light the way. They must have seemed like a strange parade indeed to any outsider happening to glance at the wilderness near the volcano.

Once through the trees, they continued on until they came to a river than ran quietly through the forest. It was at this point that the Autobots gathered at the bank. Prowl stood before them as if about to give orders to his soldiers.

"What exactly is going on?" Blitzangel whispered to Drift, almost afraid to break the silence. "What is this about?"

"Closure," he whispered back.

"We're all gathered here today," Prowl began, "to mark an official passing of one of Earth's own. One who, under the circumstances, cannot be named, but one who is gone from her mother planet all the same. Like us, she knows what it is like to be transformed and with all transformations, an old part of oneself gets left behind. This time is no exception. So we have come here to officially say goodbye to what was so we can all look to the future to what will be."

Prowl adjusted his stance, his door panels lowered a bit in reflection. "When I met her, my team was in a desperate situation. We were outnumbered, exhausted and lost. We needed help, but weren't expecting that anyone of this planet had the capability to be of use, nor would we have willingly put the natives in danger to save ourselves. But we were given help anyway, either by chance or the grace of Primus. She saved our lives." He looked down at his hands clasped in front of him. "I still fear that our meeting brought nothing but pain into her life and for that I am sorry."

Blitzangel broke from the congregation and approached him, sidling up next to the SIC and threading her arms through his. She gave him an affectionate look before announcing. "I would like to say something about the departed, if I may."

Prowl nodded, letting her stand as close to him as she liked. All optics were on the femme delivering her own eulogy.

"She may have not been as well off as some of you may have imagined. Just being on the correct planet among your own kind does not automatically create happiness. She was lonely and aimless. Maybe she would have been better off without robots in her life, or maybe the results would have been the same without the second chance."

Blitzangel looked down at her feet. "Maybe it was a second chance that was as squandered as much as the first. She made a lot of bad decisions, always chose the hardest way to do things. Maybe things happen the way they happen so we can learn a lesson, even if it's beaten into us." She looked around a the group of Autobots. "And maybe we all fit so well together because we were all meant to be here. Sometimes, it's just hard to let go of the past, but this time, the past needs to be let go. It's time to move on, I think. It all just needed a proper good-bye."

The congregation fell silent again. Then Sideswipe stepped forward.

"To think that there is something greater than us out there controlling our fates can be frightening. Or maybe, it isn't anything else controlling us, maybe it is just ourselves. Every time we meet someone, an invisible thread ties us together. And no matter where we go, we are bound to them and compelled to find each other again. Maybe this ability has been given to us so we can find home- wherever it happens to be."

Sideswipe stepped back and Prowl frowned slightly.

"That was a little off topic, I think."

"Hush," Blitzangel shushed the SIC with an elbow in his side and continued to smile.

Jazz went up next.

"When I met Cr- er, the individual in question, I thought there was something different about her. She had an ability to believe in something bigger than herself and the stubbornness to drag her feet about it the entire way. But the truth is, a lot of us are like that. We want to do things our way, even if it's the hardest way. Maybe because we know the hardest way still has its own rewards. For a while, I've been missing ... the departed as she has been called. I missed the strange things she'd say and how she could always make me smile. But lately," Jazz glanced in Blitzangel's direction. "I haven't been missing her so much. Maybe she's still been with us all along."

"Maybe," Blitzangel nodded.

Other Autobots took their turns to speak, saying whatever happened to be weighing on their shoulders at the time. It was becoming apparent, that they weren't just marking the passing of a life, but the end of an era for them all. Sooner rather than later all of them would be saying goodbye to Earth and they knew it. The time for occupying this planet was coming to a close. With Megatron no longer a present threat to the humans, there was less of a reason to be there. Time moved things forward and the world was changing. It was time for the Autobots to change with it.

After everyone had said their piece and the sun was beginning to make its way through the treeline, they gathered at the bank of the river where a small boat-like construct had been put together out of branches. It wasn't very large, even by human size. The wooden thing was set aflame and pushed to drift down the current, symbolizing everything they were letting go at this point in time.

Drift and Blitzangel stood together on the bank, watching the tiny flame in the distance.

"Did this help?" he asked her quietly.

"I think so," she said with a certain peace in her voice. "I think it helped several of us. But I noticed you didn't say anything. You had someone to say good-bye to as well."

The muscle cables around Drift's optics clenched as he watched the river. Pain very much radiated on his face though he tried valiantly not to show it.

"It's okay," Blitzangel said softly as she hugged him from the side. "You can be sad if you want to."

Drift didn't say anything, but continued to keep his gaze on the water.

"It was a very nice service," rumbled a deep voice next to them.

"Yes," Blitzangel agreed. "I think so. I-" She balked when she finally turned her head to see who was talking to her. "Op-Optimus Prime!"

The tall form of the red Autobot leader stood next to her, arms folded over his chest as he too watched the river.

Suddenly, her confidence was stripped from her all over again. Under the gaze of the Autobot leader she felt dirty and unworthy. As if her interaction with the Decepticons, however forced, had tainted her forever in his optics. She didn't want him to see what they turned her into. What did he think of her now?

Her optic band instantly went to her feet and she ducked away from his raised hand. Still, Optimus Prime rested it on her head, right between the two fox-ear like protrusions on her helm. She tried not to flinch from his touch.

"It is good to see you are doing so well," he told her gently.

Drift stumbled backward, looking strangely more pale than he usually did. "What the- You didn't say you knew Optimus Prime!"

The Autobot leader regarded the nervous neutral and Drift suddenly wished he had his swords with him. As a neutral he knew he shouldn't have anything to worry about, but that part of him that had accepted being a Decepticon feared. As if he knew the legendary Optimus Prime could smell it on him. The Autobot leader was no joke and not a foe to be taken lightly. One of the few to be able to stand toe to toe with Megatron on either faction. Drift had seen him in action, just as many other Decepticons. Optimus Prime was a force to be reckoned with.

"Drift," Optimus Prime said cordially. "I've heard about you."

Drift had a feeling the Autobot leader knew a lot more than what he had just heard recently.

"You've been taking good care of one of our own. Thank you."

The white neutral stared at the hand of Optimus Prime as it was extended to him. He felt like he was almost having an out of body experience as he watched his own hand shake that of the legendary Autobot hero.

"Sir," was all he could manage to get out and then quickly took his hand away.

"What are you doing here?" Blitzangel asked, putting the attention back on her. Drift was grateful for the distraction.

"Ultra Magnus sent me some interesting reading. I wanted to speak to the author."

She shrugged. "That's me."

Sideswipe jumped on his leader's back. "Prime! I missed you!"

Jazz tackled him from the side. "I missed you too!"

"You haven't been away that long," Optimus insisted as he tried to shake them off. "Not nearly long enough."

Other Autobots were laughing. Drift still looked shell-shocked, staring at the hand that had shaken the hand of Optimus Prime.

* * *

Later, as the day began and the sun moved higher in the sky, Optimus walked the familiar halls of the Ark, flanked by his usual seconds. It had been several months since he had been back on Earth. The corridors were so much more narrow than he remembered. The base even made him feel a bit claustrophobic. Despite his love for Earth, Iacon was a far more comfortable place to be. It was home.

"So Ultra Magnus has been sending me full reports of everything that has been going on. It's been quite interesting around here lately."

"That's what happens when you put femmes in the mix," Jazz grinned. "Things get interesting."

"Jazz," Prowl said in a certain tone.

"Well they do! Our little Angel certainly makes our lives more exciting. We wouldn't even have gotten to come back to Earth if it wasn't for her."

"Or for her neutral friend," Prime reminded them as he stepped into Wheeljack's lab. "I knew of Megatron's team of assassins lead by the Decepticon Wing. And I knew of Deadlock. The designation Drift does seem to suit him better. He strikes me as a rather aimless mech."

"I wish I could say he was the least of our worries," Prowl deadpanned.

"Yes," Optimus agreed. "Something more sinister has been lurking right under our sensors for years without our notice."

"And if our neutral friend hadn't showed up, it probably would have stayed that way," Jazz reminded. "I hafta say he's been a bit more trouble than he's worth."

"Perhaps, but all sparks deserve the opportunity to return home, no matter how long they have been lost."

Perceptor looked up when Optimus stepped into the lab. The Autobot leader zeroed in on the canister containing the mist. It had been hovering lazily in its container like a bored, fat cloud. At Optimus Prime's approach, the mist grew agitated and began to whip itself into a frenzy.

"So this is our encroacher."

"Yes, that it is, Prime," Perceptor nodded. "We have been closely monitoring the life essence of the Decepticon Lockdown since his capture and have been learning a great deal from this. We are also fashioning an adequate holding unit in which we will be able to transport him safely to Cybertron for proper storage."

Optimus Prime held up his palm. "That won't be necessary, Perceptor. I will be taking care of this right here and now."

Behind him, Prowl and Jazz looked at each other, not sure what that meant.

Perceptor's optics widened. All he knew was that it meant his good times of probing and poking the mist were now over. "But-now? There's still so many things we can learn from this. I'm not finished yet!"

"Not everything in this world is meant to be understood, Perceptor. And to deny someone rest after being tied down for so long just for the name of science is not worth the information gleaned. It needs to end. Now." Optimus tapped on the apparatus projecting security bars around the canister. "Open it."

Perceptor was still stunned that his playtime was coming to an end so abruptly. However, Wheeljack moved immediately with the order. He deactivated the energy bars and stepped back to let his leader do as he wished.

Optimus Prime reached in and gently removed the clear glass container from its safety case. The whirling mist inside shrunk down to the bottom, as far away from the Autobot leader as it could.  
"Stand back," Optimus announced a brief second before he smashed the canister on the hard metal floor.

It was the action more than the orders that caused the other Autobots to hastily retreat several paces as the mist was released. The last thing any of them wanted was another chaotic incident as the entity ripped through their soldiers.

Once freed, the mist jerked around as if trying to flee but an invisible leash prevented its escape. Eventually, it gave up and settled in a sulking cloud at knee level. A form began to appear around the mist, Cybertronian in design with the same black and green paint he sported in life. The face was painted white with jutting black stripes around sharp red optics. Optics that glared at the Autobot leader. His transparent mouth didn't move, but a voice still spoke as if coming directly from his very being.

"You still hold me, Autobot," he accused in a deep, emotionless tone that made Perceptor shiver involuntarily.

"Your time for settling old scores is over, Lockdown," Optimus Prime said, neutral and calm. "You are finished on this plane."

Lockdown continued to glare. "There are certain bots I am long from finished with."

The Prime nodded to his current state. "Then you should have picked your battles more wisely in life. Now unfinished business will have to be handled in the Matrix. It is the fate of all Primus' children."

"So it is." Lockdown still didn't look happy, but the close proximity of the Matrix held him prisoner. There was only one direction he could go now.

His stiff, stubborn shoulders began to loosen as if a heavy burden was lifted from them. Those red optics never relinquished their hard stare at the Autobot leader, but there was an indiscernible breeze, like a last breath, as the apparition grew more transparent until he disappeared entirely. The blue mist dissipated and the hum of extra energy in the room fell away.

In the aftermath, there was a silence that was almost reverent. All bots present had witnessed something that many have never and will never see in their lifetime. The Matrix at work, welded and used properly by the Prime- Primus' chosen- to guide his children. Even his so very lost. It was like feeling the actual hand of the supreme creator touch their lives for the barest moment.

Perceptor, the heathen that he was, wasted no time in breaking the devout stillness. He pulled out a scanning device and went to work taking energy measurements from the broken canister and various other points of interest in the area.

Jazz and Prowl were still keeping a respectful distance, staring in solemn awe. Optimus turned on his heel without any further ceremony and walked toward the door as if were just another thing on his to do list. His seconds were quick to follow after him.

"Prime?" Prowl asked, trying to find the right words. "Are you... is there anything that we need to assist you with?"

"I'm just fine, Prowl. Thank you for asking," Optimus responded without slowing his step. "Now if you will excuse me, I have a private appointment waiting for me in my office. I will get back with the two of you later."

Both seconds paused in their tracks at the dismissal.

"Um, Prime?" Jazz called after him.

Optimus stopped and looked back at their inquisitive faces. The Autobot leader had not been on Earth for very long, nor had he given anyone there much of a warning before his arrival. He had also failed to mention any specific reason for his visit.

"So... who's commanding Iacon while you're here?"

"Elita has taken over in my absence, Jazz. She and I have been sharing the responsibilities while the two of you have been on Earth. I don't plan on leaving her to that responsibly alone for too long. My visit here will be brief."

Prowl and Jazz shared another look. They had gotten good at conversing with each other without words. Optimus Prime had a specific reason for coming down here. Something had happened that made him feel like he needed to do some housecleaning personally among his ranks. But what? Prowl and Jazz just wanted to help. It was important their leader didn't stay too long and leave the massive base of Iacon understaffed in the command department.

"Is there anything we can do to... assist in your stay?" Prowl asked.

Optimus paused thoughtfully. "If you wish, an inventory would probably be helpful."

"Inventory of what, sir?"

"Everything."

His officers stared at him. A request like that could only mean one thing.

"Are you serious, man?" Jazz blurted out.

"Maybe." Optimus Prime turned again to leave. "I will let you know what the plan is after my meeting. Stand by."

Prowl pressed his mouth in a hard line. He hated standing by. With door panels snapping sharply, he turned in the opposite direction. Jazz didn't even have to ask where he was going; he already knew. Prowl was stalking off to prepare for what was to come.

* * *

Optimus stepped into his old office which was currently claimed by Ultra Magnus. The base commander, however, was out overseeing Autobot City, which left the room open for use. Already waiting inside was a purple femme, perched on the back of a chair, feet planted in the seat. Her head snapped right around at his entrance as if his presence startled her.

"That's not how those are meant to be used," Prime said mildly as he walked into the office.  
Blitzangel's elbows were resting on her knees, one of which was bouncing up and down in agitation. "Sorry. It's been kinda crazy here lately, weird even. I feel a little high strung right now. Being up a bit higher makes me feel better. So you wanted to talk to me?"

"I did." Despite his earlier comment on proper furniture use, Optimus opted for sitting himself on the edge of his desk. His long legs still easily touched the floor and then some. "You look a lot better since the last time I saw you."

She smiled at him, despite her restless leg. "I feel a lot better. It was a complete accident, but I'm glad I found my way back here. It really helped."

Optimus retrieved a data pad from the desktop and began scrolling through it with his finger. "Your time in getting back here has been quite interesting."

"Heh, yeah." Blitzangel looked down at her hands self-consciously. "It's been an adventure to say the least. Though... I don't know why, when you came all the way out here, you wanted to take some time to talk to me about it when you've already got the report. I'm assuming you've got something more important that you need to take care of."

Optimus paused to find the right words to explain. Shortly after reading his copy of the report he had a... what would one even call it? A dream? A vision? It was hard to explain in Cybertronian terms how the Matrix communicated with him when it wanted him to do something.

"As I read this, I had the very distinct impression that there was some important information missing. Something that I needed to come down and ask about myself."

Blitzangel's leg stopped twitching and she sat up a little bit straighter. "So you DID come all the way over here just to talk to me?"

Optimus Prime leaned forward. "Do you have some information worth the trip?"

It took her a moment to respond as she mulled over what she had to offer. "I wasn't going to tell anyone," she said quietly. "I don't know why, but I was afraid of what would happen if I let anyone know. I don't know if I was afraid of what they would think of me, or what they would do. I don't even know if anyone would believe me. But... now that you're here, I do kind of feel like I have been waiting for you to come ask me about it."

"Go on," Optimus prodded gently.

Blitzangel vented some air as she gathered her thoughts. "It was when I was with the Deceptifemmes. I was sent out with a few others to look for energy. We all split off to look down different tunnels. I remember I fell through a rusty floor into a deep cavern, hitting my head pretty hard. By the time my systems recalibrated, I was lying in some sort of corridor. It looked like an old procession hall. There were drones standing at attention on either side, like palace guards. They were all rusted in place like they had been standing there for thousands and thousands of years."

She looked up for the Autobot leader's approval. Perhaps hoping he would confirm that such a place did exist on Cybertron and she hadn't hallucinated the entire experience. But Optimus just sat there silently, waiting for her to continue.

"At the end of the corridor was a dais with a glowing orb. I think- it didn't have anything identifying it- but I think it was... Vector Sigma."

She hunched down a bit, waiting for Optimus to discredit her story.

"Did it speak to you?" was all he asked.

Her head shot up. "No. I- was it supposed to if it really was... what I thought it was?"

"You're doing fine. Tell me the rest."

She felt her fingers tingle as she thought about the encounter. "I don't know how, but I had the impression it wanted me to touch it. So I put my hands on it and suddenly, it was like I was... inside it somehow. I don't know how else to explain it. Inside, it was just empty, but there was like a consciousness there, an intelligence. There was an old Autobot who talked to me. He said his name was Alpha Trion."

Optimus instantly snapped to his full height. "Are you sur-"

His sudden movement startled the femme, having a massive mech suddenly standing over her. She jumped back, but there was nothing there to catch her. She gave a started squeak as she pinwheeled off the back of the chair. Optimus was quick to grab her wrist before she fell off. Blitzangel, however, looked more amenable to being allowed to plummet to the floor than hang from the Prime's grip. Her expression was fearful.

"I'm sorry. Did I do something wrong?" she worried.

Optimus pulled her back so she could balance again then stepped away, palms up. "No, I am sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. What you said surprised me."

"Do you know this Alpha Trion?"

"I did. And to be honest, I really shouldn't have been surprised at all to hear his name when speaking of Vector Sigma. You see, I was present when he decided to merge with the sphere."

"So you believe me," Blitzangel said with obvious relief in her voice.

"I do. Vector Sigma does indeed exist in the deepest bowels of Cybertron. Though not everyone who seeks it will find it. Those who are not looking for it may find it if the sphere has a message. So please tell me everything. Don't leave anything out."

"Oh gosh." Blitzangel did her best to remember what was said. "He told me his name was Alpha Trion and that he was the first generation of Vector Sigma. Then he told me that life on Cybertron was slowly dying out. No new sparks had been created for a very long time." She paused. "Just why is that, Optimus? I know that the Arielbots and the Stunticons were created within the past twenty years. So why no one else?"

"Back in the Golden Age of Cybertron," the leader began, "there was a path that led down to Vector Sigma. Creators would take their new creations down there and ask it to give them life. They used special keys to activate the sphere. When the second Great War started, the keys began to become harder to come by. Very few knew how to make them any more. Eventually, the keys disappeared, as did those who knew how to create. The path that we used to traverse to Vector Sigma suddenly collapsed and the sphere itself disappeared deep within the bowels of the planet.

"Many went in search of it when we realized our kind were slowly dying out and no new sparks were being created. But as I said, many who go looking for Vector Sigma never find it. The Stunticons and Arielbots were a fluke. Megatron captured Alpha Trion- perhaps the last bot on Cybertron who knew how to make a key and where to find Vector Sigma. He forced Alpha Trion to build his team and give them life. We, of course, went after them. We rescued Alpha Trion, but Megatron had already used up all the power of the key for his Stunticons. My team was now badly outnumbered.

"Alpha Trion told us to build another team anyway, one equipped to battle the Stunticons and even the odds. Alpha Trion chose to merge with Vector Sigma himself to bring life one last time. After that, the sphere disappeared again. We haven't been able to locate it since."

"So there's a reason it was trying to get a message out to someone," Blitzangel guessed. "Maybe it wanted me to pass that message onto you."

"Maybe. What else happened?"

"The last thing Alpha Trion said was that extinction for Cybertron was coming and whatever the cause, it did not intend to let anyone survive." She paused. "He made it sound like this wasn't going to be just a natural catastrophe. More like a conscious action on someone's part."

"Did he give any more specifics?" Optimus asked.

"No, but I have had bots mention Unicron to me lately."

Optimus visibly looked a bit uncomfortable. "Please, let's just continue only with what you saw and heard. No outside influences."

"Okay. Um... after Alpha Trion said that, he disappeared. Then I saw- I don't think you'll believe this, Optimus Prime."

"You can just call me Prime. And I believe that you are telling me what you saw to the best of your ability. Please go on."

"I saw another bot. Bigger than I could even begin to explain. He was as big as a planet- like he could transform into one. I think he was Cybertron itself. And he told me he was Primus."

She waited for Optimus to stop her or question what she saw, but he just nodded.

Blitzangel continued. "He said he created everyone on Cybertron. They are all his children and he knew them all." Even to the Prime, she omitted certain things. Like how she had never felt so much of an outcast in her life. That being, whatever he was, had looked in her soul and knew what she really was and that she didn't belong there. "He also told me something else follows him, destroying everything he creates. He said he tried to make Cybertron strong enough so it would survive, but he worries it's not enough."

Optimus Prime sat there quietly, letting the information soak in.

"That's pretty much it," Blitzangel continued, feeling a need to break the silence. "Then I just kind of... woke up, I guess you could call it. Had a bump on my head and my systems were a bit confused. I tried to convince myself it was some sort of dream or glitch for a long time. But I know it happened. Alpha Trion, I can still feel a bit of him in my head. I look at things and I just know how they work, how to fix them. I know how to build things from scratch. I never knew this stuff before. I don't know, maybe I was given this to help with something. Or maybe it was an unforeseeable aftereffect. Who knows?"

She shrugged ineffectually, but Optimus didn't have any words of assurance for her. His faith in Alpha Trion's foresight had been jaded in the wake of recent revelations.

"Anything else you want to add?"

Blitzangel thought his voice suddenly had a harsher tone. She tried not to take it personally. "Um, no. That's all I can think of," she said in a small voice.

Optimus made himself pause before he let his own hangups wound something more fragile than himself. The purple femme hunched on top of the chair was watching her fidgeting fingers, her attempts at appearing nonchalant none too effective.

She stiffened in surprise when a great red arm circled around her head and pulled her into a broad chest.

"You did very well," Optimus Prime said in a more gentle tone.

Blitzangel instantly felt warm. It was something akin to getting approval from a parental figure.

Optimus pulled away with a pat on her head and then walked out of the office. "If you'll excuse me. It's time to get to work."


	19. Chapter 19: Last Days on Earth Part 3

Notes: Hey guys, sorry for the delay. I finally finished the time on Earth and thus marking roughly the middle of this last book. These last parts were very difficult to get through. I would have liked to have had it done all in one chapter if possible, but there was still just too much to cover. Thank you to everyone for sticking with me and especially those who take time to comment. I cannot express enough how much it motivates and inspires me when people take time to share their thoughts and feelings on this story. It pulls me through the rough parts and gives me joy through the good parts. Thank you for the support.

Rising Generations

Chapter Nineteen: Last Days on Earth Part 3

Optimus Prime stood at the head of the table, overlooking all his seated commanders present on the planet. Prowl, Jazz, Ultra Magnus and Kup all stared at him silently as he dropped the bomb on them- his current plans for the Earth Autobots.

"Pardon the outburst Prime," Kup said directly after his statement, "but are you out of your processor? You want us to just pack up everything on Earth and leave? I mean not that I mind too much, I'm not the one who made a home on this planet. But we've been building your pet city project for months now for frag's sake! Now we're just going to drop all that hard work and go back to Cybertron?"

Ultra Magnus gave his second a sharp look for his language.

"For the moment, yes we are," Optimus confirmed, undaunted and resolute. "Sometime soon Cybertron is going to need us. All of us."

Prowl was typing on his data pad in a flurry, no hint of doubt for his leader in his voice. "And what of the Decepticons here on Earth? While they are still here, we cannot leave this planet barren of Autobot protectors."

"I said _all _of us need to go back to Cybertron, Prowl," Optimus punctuated. "What's to come may be even bigger than Autobots and Decepticons."

"And what exactly are you expecting to come?" Ultra Magnus questioned without judgment. "I have been hearing some strange talk of certain things lately and quite frankly, I'm not sure what to believe."

"Whatever is to be believed or not believed, I feel something catastrophic is coming to our home world," Optimus said. "The Matrix has confirmed with me this much is true. So as for now, the Autobot City project is on hold. The Ark will be evacuated and locked down. The remaining Decepticons will be returned to Cybertron and we will leave Earth to its people until the threat on our own planet is over."

Kup was frowning silently, arms folded. He either didn't approve of the plan or was dubious of the threat to Cybertron. But he knew better than to question the instincts of his Prime.

"I'm already issuing a notice of evacuation to all Autobots," Prowl reported as his fingers continued to fly. Not only was he not surprised with Optimus Prime's announcement, he was prepared for it. "I had Wheeljack prepare a list of what equipment can stay and what we should take with us. Red Alert has already been put to the task of locating our errant Decepticons. Ultra Magnus, if you don't mind, you will oversee anything that needs to be done pertaining Autobot City. The humans are welcome to continue to work on its construction in our absence if they wish. Just inform the team of our intentions and let me know what they intend to do after our departure."

Ultra Magnus nodded.

"What I want to know," Kup cut in, "is once we locate the Decepticons, how do we get them to go through the space bridge? We've got two gestalt teams out there and both are extremely hard to handle in very different ways."

"We'll try the direct approach, first," Jazz instantly responded as if he had already been considering that question for a while. "We'll offer them a free ticket to Cybertron, coordinates of their choosing as long as they just leave Earth. We also got the three cone heads still in custody that we can use as bargaining chips. They may be more willing to play ball if we let their buddies go along for the ride."

"Really," Kup said. "You think those Cons care that much for their own soldiers?"

"Decepticons care about power," Prowl retorted, not looking up from his work. "There is more power in larger numbers. The chance to increase not only their numbers, but the measure of their collective safety would be tempting."

"I'll get with Red on Con duty to be the ambassador," Jazz volunteered. "I'll make them an offer they can't refuse."

"And why are we giving them all a free trip back to Megatron?" Kup asked. "Why are we not instead collecting our own numbers into strike teams to take down the rest of our stray Cons to bring them back to Iacon as prisoners? Why do we want to add such dangerous teams back to Megatron's fold? It just doesn't seem like a smart move to me."

"Because," Optimus Prime said with an earnest stare that made Kup feel a slight chill. "I have a feeling we're going to need every bot on Cybertron we can get."

* * *

Optimus Prime wandered the dormant skeleton of Autobot City, taking note of its current progress. At the moment, all construction had been halted and the site was deserted until further details could be hashed out. Several of the Earth construction crews were worried they would be out of a job now that the Autobots were leaving. Optimus hoped it would not come to that. The city's foundation was barely being dug out when he first left for Cybertron. It would be a shame to not see this project through.

"I really hope to see this place finished one day," said the human perched casually on Prime's shoulder, reflecting his very thoughts. "It'd be a shame to just sit there like this. Especially since I designed a good portion of it."

"That you did, Spike," Optimus agreed. "And quite a good job of it I might add. I too would like to see it in its completion." His voice carried a melancholy as if he expected to grow old before that time came.

The man who had first met these giant alien robots when he was a young boy surveyed the landscape with his keen eye. He could still imagine this city completed and full of humans and Cybertronians alike.

"Will this city be completed one day, Optimus? Or has everything changed now?"

"I sincerely hope it hasn't, my friend. It's your dream as well as mine to have a Cybertronian embassy here where both our worlds my coexist and learn from each other. Earth has a special place in my spark and I do not wish to have the Autobots be without it. The future is uncertain, but it does not mean that uncertainty will end in tragedy."

Spike chuckled. "You sound a little grim there, Optimus. I have every confidence that whatever might be coming, the Autobots will get through it just fine. You need to come back yourself. You still need to introduce Carly and I to this Elita One we keep hearing about."

"I see," Optimus responded thoughtfully. "I will make sure to do that then. I would indeed enjoy showing her this planet. I think she will enjoy it." Thinking of his femme currently running all of Iacon with a very small commanding staff reminded him he needed to return to Cybertron soon.

"So how's Bumblebee doing up there?" Spike asked.

"He's doing fine. Working hard as always. But I can tell he misses Earth and you."

"I miss him, too." Spike ran his fingers through his thick, brown hair. "He's been such a big part of my life for so long, I started taking his presence for granted. I let myself get so busy with other things, I just didn't see him too much any more. My son was spending more time with him than I was. I barely found a moment to say goodbye and now..." He paused and sighed. "Now I just miss my best friend. I just never thought there would be a point in my life where I couldn't see him whenever I wanted."

"Spike," Optimus said heavily. "I promise you I will do everything in my power to keep Bumblebee safe. He will come back to Earth, I swear it to you."

Spike chuckled, suddenly feeling like that young teenage kid when he was first sucked into the Autobot's world. He didn't need Optimus looking after his feelings and his hopes anymore. But it always felt good to have the big guy on his side.

"You make sure you come back, too, Optimus. I mean it. You're in big trouble if you don't."

"Well I certainly don't want to disappoint you," the Autobot leader responded.

"Oh, I wasn't talking about me. I was talking about Carly. If you let anything happen to you, you know she'll drag your metal carcass back to Earth and shock your spark from the Matrix just so she can kill you again."

"Indeed. Your femme is a frightening woman sometimes."

Spike huffed. "Tell me about it."

The two looked at each other and cracked up, laughing aloud together at all the terrifying things the vast universe had to offer.

* * *

The Ark had more loitering Autobots than usual hanging around outside the general vicinity. With Autobot City on hold, everyone was finding themselves with very little to do these days. Most were packing. Those caught with nothing to do by Prowl were put to work getting ready the first shipment of equipment back to Cybertron.

The twins had managed to avoid too much manual labor so far. Prowl was of the eternal opinion that the brothers never had enough to do and would seek them out whenever there was work to be done. Today, however, Prowl took one look at the twins, saw them in the company of Blitzangel and Drift, and left them alone. So far, it was the only good thing about the neutral Sunstreaker could name. Though it still didn't stop him from picturing Drift's head on the target while he and Sideswipe practiced their aim.

Drift really rubbed Sunstreaker the wrong way. Part of it was how he monopolized Blitzangel's time while she was around the base. The other part was that he watched working Autobots as if he found all their efforts to be unimportant. He was quiet today though. Sunstreaker did his best to ignore his presence while he could.

"Want to give it a shot, Angel?" Sideswipe offered brightly, immune to any and all bad attitudes.  
Blitzangel instantly waved her hands in declination from where she had been watching. "Oh, no thank you. You know I'm a horrible shot. All of this did nothing to improve that." She motioned to her new body.

She had a brief memory of Starscream attempting to program her horrible aim out of her to no avail. This had stumped the seeker speechless. He had eventually given up without admitting to anyone of his failure.

"Come on," Sideswipe encouraged. "You can still have fun even if you're not that good at it."

"Knowing your way around a gun could possibly save your life, whether you use them often or not," Drift urged.

"I guess," she admitted, getting up.

"Of course she comes when he suggests it," Sunstreaker grumbled.

Sideswipe just grinned at his brother. Blitzangel approached the red Autobot who handed her his weapon. He began to go over its basic functions while she got used to the weight of it in her hands. Sideswipe was reminding her of the best shooting stance when Tracks came out of the Ark and approached him.

"Hey Tracks," Sunstreaker said as he noticed the blue Autobot. "How's it going with the cons?"

Tracks stood next to his friend as he watched the yellow Autobot fire three smooth shots in succession.

"After several hours of negotiation, Jazz seems to have the Constructicons on board. They're still hammering out all the details, but with the release of our prisoners, they seem eager to get back to Megatron as heroes. Can't say the same about the Stunticons though. They've pretty much told anyone attempting to make contact to go frag themselves."

"I'm not surprised," Blitzangel said as she lined up her sights and pulled the trigger. The energy blast barely nicked the edge of the target and she pressed her lips in disappointment.

"Oh?" Tracks challenged. "You think you know all Decepticons now, do you?"

"I know these Decepticons," she insisted. "There's no way in hell they'll go anywhere with the Constructicons."

"And why not? Do please enlighten us if you would."

"Because they're damaged."

Before Tracks could ask what that meant, Drift grabbed her arm.

"You're doing this all wrong, Angel. Prop up the gun with both hands like this. Then you won't wobble so much when you pull the trigger."

"I got it," she said, slapping his hands away.

She fired again and the shot missed the target altogether. Tracks snorted.

"You are so bad at this," Drift accused.

"I don't mind," she responded lightly. "I don't like guns much anyway. Just knowing how to use them is fine."

"No it's not just fine, you're not even trying," Drift insisted. "Do it again and be serious this time."

She ducked out of his grip when he reached for her. "No, I'm not doing it again if you're just going to tell me how awful I am. What's with you today? Everything I do has irritated you. Are you still bummed about your ship?"

"What? No. I don't care about the ship."

"Aw, but you loved that ship," Blitzangel sympathized. "I'm sorry you lost your shuttle Drift, I really am."

"It's not about the ship!" he practically barked at her.

Sunstreaker narrowed his optics protectively at the neutral's outburst, but Blitzangel's mouth fell open.

"Now I get it. You're mad at _me_!" she blurted.

"I'm not-" Drift cut off his harsh tone to start again softer. "I'm not mad at you."

"Oh yes you are," Blitzangel insisted as she handed Sideswipe back his weapon. Then she returned her gaze to Drift, hands on hips. "Let's have it. What's your beef with me?"

"It's nothing," he huffed. "It's not your fault, okay?"

"Well, what is it? Tell me."

"Look, I just... I've been feeling a bit overwhelmed. It's like there's always something new coming at me. I thought I knew you already, but then there's Optimus Prime, and this planet and you. And I keep thinking in my head how long I've been living with you and you didn't tell me anything."

He quickly continued before she could interject. "And I know I didn't tell you much about me either. And I know you couldn't have told me anything even if you wanted to. Before we landed on this planet, I wouldn't have even been able to understand. I wouldn't have had any point of reference if you tried to explain what you are. But," he paused to huff some air, "I can't help but feel a little frustrated with it all sometimes. I'm stuck here on this planet and everyone knows what's going on and I know nothing and I'm just a little cranky right now, okay?"

His voice had harshened by the time he was done, but Blitzangel was smirking at him.

"Aw, you're a little frustrated?" she said, poking him in the chest with a finger. "Wanna take it out on someone, huh?" She poked him again. "You wanna have a go at me?"

Drift immediately backed off when he was under attack. "Stop it. I'm not going to-"

"Come on, tough guy, let's go. You and me," the femme egged relentlessly, still pushing at him with her fingertips. "I know you want to take a swipe at me. Let's have it. Come on."

"Angel, I don't want to-" He was cut off as she threw her fist at him.

Drift caught her punch in his palm, yellow optics wide. Blitzangel was grinning as she threw the second fist. It was deflected and Drift reflexibly punched back.

"That's right, let it out," Blitzangel said as she ducked.

Drift kicked at her and she allowed the hit, catching the brunt with her arm. Drift threw several more punches at her. The femme blocked each one instead of ducking away, knowing there was satisfaction in the hit even if he wasn't causing her any damage.

"Hey, stop hitting her." Sunstreaker was about to step in until Sideswipe threw an arm in his chest to stop him.

"Come on Streak, they're not hurting each other. They're just playing around like you and me do," Sideswipe said casually.

Just as he said that, Blitzangel took her turn to throw a punch. Drift went into a defensive stance, but wasn't as prepared when she grabbed him and pulled him forward as she fell back, using an ample foot to flip him head over heels. Drift landed flat on his back while Blitzangel used the impetus of the move to land on top, straddling his waist.

"Feeling better?" she grinned.

Drift just grabbed her shoulder and shoved her off. Blitzangel rolled and jumped back to her feet. Drift was already up and attacking. He was almost too fast for the femme to properly dodge without getting damaged. She ducked and blocked, barely keeping up with his punches. Drift rushed her and she stumbled back. The white mech caught her and pushed her bodily into the side of the volcano.

She was pinned there, her body pressed to the side of the mountain. Drift loomed over her, his arms on either side blocking her in, his fingers stabbed into the dirt like claws.

Blitzangel let out a quick huff of air from her workout. "How do you feel now?"

"Sometimes I just want to throttle you," Drift growled in her face.

She grinned. "No you don't."

She was right. There was something else he wanted to do to her instead. His core heated, his engine ran hot and it took all his willpower to drag himself away from her. Once he achieved some distance, his systems began to cool. He deeply hissed out air. Once, twice. A third time and he was nearly back to normal temperature.

Blitzangel wisely gave him some space for a moment. Drift clenched and unclenched his fists, rolling the joints in his arms as he cooled down. Even the femme could hear all the grit and grime grinding in his gears.

"I'm going to go shower," he said with a hint of defeat in his voice.

Blitzangel chose this time to invade his space again and reached up on her toes to kiss his chin. "Go get yourself some space. And remember I love you even on your cranky days."

He gave her a sardonic smile. "I liked you better when you were an introvert."

"Too bad, this is the real me. Get used to it. Now go get clean, your joints sound disgusting."

Drift turned and left. As he did, his expression changed to one that bordered on self loathing.

Sunstreaker caught the look and found himself sympathizing with his fellow mech for his masculine frustration. Femmes. They really had no idea.

The oblivious Blitzangel brushed herself off. She was a bit dusty from the scuffle, but no worse for wear. "Tracks, do you know where Jazz is now? Maybe I can help with the Decepticon situation."

* * *

Drift slunk into the shower room, grateful no one else was in there. He hated whenever he had to use the Autobot's resources and hated it even more that he had no other option. But one glance in the mirror told him he was long overdue for a cleaning. The white mech was no longer all that white. He was more an eggshell brown, covered in the dirt of the organic planet. Like it or not, he badly needed a clean or he was going to rust in place.

Turning on the first faucet he came to, Drift dunked his head under the solvent. Immediately he began to feel the liquid eat away at all the gunk in his gears. He was sure there was plenty of debris from other planets to rinse out as well. How long had it been since he had a proper shower? He stayed under the running liquid, letting it cover his body as his thoughts processed the day.

He didn't like how he had been that day. Drift didn't consider himself a moody mech, not even at the worst of times. But this place was getting to him. It wasn't just being stuck on this planet with Autobots, it was also the fact that he didn't have one inch of space to call his own. Blitzangel had been right, he missed his shuttle. It was everything he owned, it was his home. Without it he felt unsure about the future, as precipitous as a leaf in the wind and it was starting to wear him down.

Surprisingly he had been faring much better when Blitzangel was still recovering. He liked it when she left him alone for hours at a time, it gave him his own space. He also liked it when she came back, he could focus on helping her recover. But now she had recovered. The femme was doing very well and there was nothing else for Drift to focus on. Now, Blitzangel was with him all the time and it was grating on him in a way he was unfamiliar with.

Femmes, he was never that good at handling them and this one was far more complicated than he could have ever imagined. She was too foreign, too young, too new to life. What Drift needed to do was get back to Cybertron, find a ship and get himself the slag out of there. It would be the best for everyone.

He growled as he clenched his fists on the shower walls. He didn't like the kind of mech all this stress was making him. Stupid femmes, stupid Autobots, stupid organic planet. Fragging stupid WING. At the thought of his deceased mentor, all Drift's previous irritation at everything else transferred over to him. This was all Wing's fault. Why couldn't the dead mech just kept his mouth shut? There were certain things, a certain knowledge that no being should have to live with. There were certain things he wished he had never been told.

Drift, however, was never one to let anything get him down for long. He let the shower wash away the grime and the frustration and emerged fresh and composed once having some time alone with his thoughts.

Only a few steps out into the hall, however, and Drift ran into an Autobot. More like THE Autobot.

"Uh, Optimus Prime, sir," Drift balked awkwardly. "Hello."

"Drift," Optimus nodded. "I have been hoping to speak with you. Come, walk with me."

The white mech fell instep with the Autobot leader without complaint. Drift considered himself a pretty sizable mech, but Optimus towered over him easily. Drift tried not to stare.

"I understand that my troops have offered you medical assistance as well as all amenities you have needed during your stay," Optimus said.

"Yes, the Autobots have been very hospitable and I am grateful for their help."

"I hope you don't mind if I request you show your gratitude by assisting us with our move back to Cybertron."

"No, actually, I would be happy to. I think keeping myself busy right now is a great idea. Just tell me what you want me to do."

"May I also ask what your plans are once we have all returned to Cybertron?" Optimus then asked.

"To be honest, sir, that's something I've been wrestling with for quite some time. At first, all I could think about was getting a hold of another ship as soon as possible and taking off. But now..." He looked up at the Autobot leader. "You know I used to be a Decepticon assassin, right?"

"I do," he said without judgment.

"You know, sir, I may not be as old as some, but I'm not that young either. I know that before The Great War, before Autobots and Decepticons, we still had Primes, chosen by the Matrix to lead and advise us all. That means you're my Prime, too, no matter my faction. And if The Prime orders us all back to Cybertron to protect her from a great calamity, who am I to refuse?"

"Except a part of you wants to," Optimus informed him.

"A part of me wants to," Drift agreed. "I just don't know right now. But I am willing to help as long as I am around. So for now sir, put me to work."

* * *

"This sucks!" Wildrider barked for the third time in the last thirty minutes. "I'm so sick of hiding in here! I wanna go out! I wanna bust something up!"

Drag Strip overtly moaned at hearing the same tirade again.

"If you want to go out, be my guest," Dead End drawled. "You know you won't get too far with all your tires slashed and an empty tank."

Wildrider growled deep in his engine even though he knew it was true. It was that stupid femme's fault. Her tiny size caught them all off guard and she made them look like idiots. She had damaged them good in a blink of an eye. No major damage, but enough to impede their alt modes, making travel difficult. Now the entire Stunticon team was forced to bunker down in an abandoned warehouse to try and figure out a plan of action.

The salt in the wound was that the Autobots had found them so easily. Their transmission with its unique offer was disconcerting. The whole free ride back to Cybertron and Megatron's army was too good to be true. The offer was embittered by the fact that they would have to face the Construcitons in their current state. There was no way in the pit they were going to present themselves to those mad scientists like lambs to the slaughter.

"So what are you going to do?" Breakdown asked, his question mostly directed to Motormaster. "We gotta get energy and we gotta get out of here before the Autobots come after us en masse. They're probably organizing a strike team to eradicate us as we speak! I wouldn't be surprised if they're waiting out there for us right now, guns at the ready."

"Calm down!" Motormaster ordered with a slap of his palm to Breakdown's head. "The Autobots aren't out to get us. They've been letting us run around this place for a while. They don't give two pistons whether we're holed up in here or not."

The metal walls of the dilapidated building shook as powerful jet engines sounded overhead. Very close overhead. The Stunticons fell silent. Their keen hearing picked up footsteps outside and they each readied their weapons as a petite form holding a case in each hand silhouetted in the light of the doorway.

"Hello again, dumbasses," came a bland, female voice.

"It's the babe!" Drag Strip announced.

"And I'm going to blast off that pretty little head if you come one step closer," Wildrider warned.

Blitzangel was unperturbed. "I come in peace. I have energon."

"Fine, I'll blast off your head and THEN take everything you've got," Wildrider challenged.

Blitzangel made a small gesture with one hand and a laser blast shot through a broken window and knocked the weapon right out of Wildrider's fingers.

"We ARE surrounded!" Breakdown screamed in a high voice. He immediately dropped his blaster and raised his arms in surrender.

"Idiot," Motormaster grumbled lowly.

"You are not surrounded," Blitzangel informed him, "but I did bring enough back up in case you wanted to start something again."

She wasn't stupid, she knew their first encounter was a fluke. Blitzangel had taken the team by surprise. They weren't expecting such a big fight from such a small package and that's how she had managed to make it out mostly in tact. The second time she may not be so lucky. They knew what she could do now and even damaged, the Stunticons were dangerous.

Bluestreak was stationed outside the building, his sniper's optic sharp. He was the one who had shot Wildrider's weapon from his hand and he could do it again to any one of them if he had to. But the Autobot sharp shooter alone was not going to guarantee that this team behaved themselves. Blitzangel needed some extra insurance.

A massive metal Pteranodon flew overhead with an even larger body in his claws. Grimlock's robot form hung proudly in Swoop's grip, arms folded over his chest. Upon reaching the target destination, Swoop let go and Grimlock dropped like a rock. He transformed to dinosaur mode in mid air and landed on his haunches, hard enough to make the ground quake. Roaring into the warehouse, the Dinobot leader made more than just Breakdown scream.

As crazy and dangerous as the Stunticon team was, the Dinobots scared the hell out of everyone. Even some of the Autobots themselves.

"So," Blitzangel announced as Swoop also landed behind her, "would you be interested in hearing my offer now?"

She was met with silence and wide optics. The femme decided that was good enough to continue.

"Optimus Prime has decided it is top priority to remove all Decepticons from Earth immediately. As such, he is willing to make this one last offer to get your sorry cans to the space bridge under your own power. I am authorized to offer you idiots both energon and repairs before reporting to the bridge. Or, option two is that I have Grimlock here tear you apart and we'll tell the Constructicons where to pick up your pieces so they can take them back to Cybertron themselves where they will handle your sparkless bodies as they wish." She opened one of the cases and the Stunticons practically salivated at the sight of fresh, glowing energon cubes.

"How about it?" she continued. "Option one or option two?"

To his credit, Motormaster got his team under control before they gladly sold their souls away for energon. Before they agreed to anything, he insisted on hashing out the particulars of how they would be treated once arriving at the space bridge and where exactly on Cybertron they would be sent. Via radio link with Prowl, Blitzangel solidified plans to everyone's satisfaction.

Once that was done, to the Stunticon's disappointment, the energon case was closed and put under Grimlock's protection. The second case of medical tools was pulled out and Blitzangel got to work. Only patients who received a clean bill of health and behaved themselves would be alloted energon.

"That's crap!" Wildrider protested after she informed them. "How can we even trust you to fix us? You're just some crazy jet femme soldier."

Blitzangel smiled. "I'm also the little maintenance bot, remember? I can fix anything. But if you would rather talk about it with Grimlock..."

The Dinobot growled and showed his teeth.

"No, no! No. It's okay. You can fix me," Wildrider insisted, waving his hands about.

"You can fix me any day doll," Drag Strip purred.

They hadn't changed at all. They were still just little boys.

Blitzangel worked as fast as she could for everyone's comfort. Swoop kept an eye on the Stunticons who weren't currently being treated while Grimlock hovered over the femme's makeshift repair station. She had to get him to back off a bit as some of the higher strung cars were shaking so much. She thought Breakdown was going to fritz out.

In the end, all repairs were complete and energon dished out. Blitzangel gave the team the location of the space bridge and Swoop was charged with escorting them so they didn't renege their deal. The Costructicons were already supposed to be on site, going through with the previously imprisoned trio of jets.

Blitzangel watched the team drive off, feeling accomplished. She had a hand in ridding her planet of Decepticons. Growing up in the era of the Cybertronian occupation, she couldn't remember a time in her life where the Decepticons weren't a threat to their planet. Now both factions were evacuating themselves from her world. At least one faction she hoped for good. Part of her wondered what life would be like for the indigenous people of Earth now.

Grimlock crouched near her as she saw Bluestreak signal an all clear in the distance.

"What do you think, Grimlock?" she asked as she waved back to Bluestreak. "You ready to pack it all up and go to Cybertron?

"Me Grimlock ready!" he affirmed with gusto. "But sometimes me Grimlock wonder if Cybertron ready for me."

She couldn't help it, Blitzangel laughed and scratched his neck. "I guess we'll be finding out."

* * *

It was getting dark by the time the team dispatched to repair the Stunticons had returned. Despite the dimming light, the Ark was bright and in full swing. There was celebration to be had, for that night Earth was completely free of Decepticons. Ultra Magnus and his team had personally made sure every one of them were escorted onto the space bridge and deposited in Cybertron's neutral territory within sight of Darkmount.

The Autobot's work, however, was far from finished. Refortifying Megatron's team with gestalts felt like it was an open invitation for the Decepticons to strike Autobot territory if they spread word Optimus Prime was currently on Earth. The rest of the Autobots needed to follow suit and get themselves back to Iacon as soon as possible.

Ultra Magnus was taking the first wave of Autobots through the bridge. The Arielbots, Protectobots, Kup, Springer, Arcee and Jazz went through first along with Perceptor to oversee all the equipment they were moving with them. Elita-One would certainly be happy to see the extra commanding officers with as thin as she was spread.

The task of closing down the Ark was left to Optimus Prime and Prowl. They had a remaining skeleton crew of Hound, Tracks, Red Alert, Bluestreak, Wheeljack, the twins and the Dinobots. Each section of the shuttle was closed down one by one as Prowl went through them, making sure they didn't leave anything useful behind.

"It's going to be weird not living here any more," Hound commented to the SIC as he patted the walls of the Ark. "It's been like home. I've almost forgotten what it was like to live on Cybertron. I kind of... almost feel like Earth is more home to me now."

"I'm sure you'll be able to return to this post after all this is over," Prowl said to his data pad, somewhat distracted with his thoughts. Forty percent of the base was cleared and locked down. Now if only he could get the rest of the crew to help him finish.

Most of the remaining Autobots were gathered in the rec room where Sideswipe had pulled out the karaoke machine. It wasn't exactly of his own volition, either. There was one remaining human loitering around, determined to make the most of the Autobot's last day on Earth and her last day in Oregon before going back on tour.

Red Alert had insisted time and time again that the concept of music was not something he could recreate easily. That didn't stop Mercedes from making him take a modified Cybertronian-sized mic and sing a duet with her.

"I don't get this," Red Alert insisted as the song started.

"Your part is so easy," Mercedes insisted. "You just sing what I sing, look at the screen. _All the leaves are brown._"

Red Alert stared at the screen but did not repeat the line.

"_And the sky is gray_," Mercedes sang.

Red Alert looked confused, but was trying to figure it out.  
"_I've been for a walk_," the girl sang as she pointed emphatically to the lyrics on the screen.

"I've been for a walk," Red Alert repeated flatly, not in sync with the music.

"_On a winter's day._"

"On a winter's... day?"

Mercedes started laughing so hard she had trouble singing the next part. The rest of the Autobots present were having a great time too, watching Red Alert struggle through the song. He was trying to be a good sport but music was clearly not and would never be his forte.

Prowl frowned at them all. They were so close to finishing this and getting out of here. He just wanted to be done and gone.

Hound put a hand on his shoulder. "Prime said they could have a little time, it's not hurting anything. We'll be out of here soon enough."

Prowl continued to watch them all judgmentally.

Blitzangel paused from laughing at the worst rendition of California Dreaming ever conceived when he caught her gaze. She beamed at him widely and waved. Prowl's stiff stance relaxed under her attention and now Hound was grinning at him, too. Prowl glared at him and Hound pretending his attentions were suddenly elsewhere.

By the end of the song, Mercedes was laughing so much her face was flushed and Red Alert looked positively frustrated with the whole thing. He was glad it was over, but also glad Mercedes had a good time.

"Anyone else?" the girl asked on her microphone.

"Oh! ME!" Drift suddenly announced, raising his hand like an excited kindergartener.  
When the karaoke machine had first been pulled out, Drift looked at it like it was the most amazing invention in the history of everything. He quickly made his way to the front and set about selecting a song. Blitzangel waved to Prowl and patted the now empty seat beside her invitingly.

Prowl loathed to stop in the middle of a project, but found himself walking over to her. Maybe just for a few minutes and then he would get back to work.

"How's everything going?" she asked when he sat next to her.

"We're getting there. Only a few more sections to close off, including this one."

She patted his hand. "It will be done soon enough. Hold on, we're almost there."

"How about you?" Prowl then asked. "Are you ready for Cybertron?"

The feminine hand patting his gripped his hand tightly, betraying her light tone. "I'm as ready as I can be I guess."

"It will be fine," he assured her back.

Drifts song came on and he grabbed the mic with a bravado. The white mech swayed to the music and sang the sweet lyrics of the slow love song, looking directly at Blitzangel with a huge grin.

_Come on, baby, dry your eyes  
Wipe your tears  
Never like to see you cry  
Won't you please forgive me?_

"Ugh," Blitzangel huffed. "Him and his stupid predilection for 80's songs."

Prowl didn't think the tone of the song was appropriate either. He wasn't to thrilled with the satisfied grin on the white mech's face.

_I wouldn't ever try to hurt you_  
_I just needed someone to hold me_  
_To fill the void while you were gone_  
_To fill this space of emptiness_

Drift's grin only grew bigger as he sang the chorus.

_I'm only human_  
_Of flesh and blood I'm made_  
_Human_  
_Born to make mistakes_

Blitzangel put her other hand over her face. "That idiot. He thinks he's so funny."

Grimlock was standing over them. "Me Grimlock be next. Gonna sing My Immortal."

Blitzangel laughed. "Oh man, I gotta stick around to see that. Then I will help you close up shop, Prowl. How about that?"

The SIC didn't look amendable to being delayed longer, but agreed as the femme's hand remained on his.

* * *

Mercedes sat in the white and red car with the fire department logo emblazoned on its hood and sides. She stared through the darkness at the sizable house of her own estate. The life of a pop idol was something many dreamed about, but she didn't want to go back to it yet.

"You have to go," Red Alert's voice said softly. "We both have to go."

"I know," she sighed. "I just..." She hugged the steering wheel. "I just don't want this to be the last time I see you."

"It won't be," he replied simply.

"You're so sure, huh?" the girl replied with a hint of a smile.

"I am positive we will meet again."

"I guess I can't argue with that, then." Mercedes got out of the car, then turned to look at it, hands clasped in front of her. "Do you mind- can you transform for me?"

Red Alert changed to his root mode and he helped Mercedes climb up so she could hug him around his neck. Even though he was on the smaller side of the Autobots, she still could barely fit her arms all the way around.

"I'm going to miss your face," she said with a playful tone. "You watch your back out there. Don't get killed."

"The chances of that are unlikely as they usually appoint me to the tower, not relegate me to the front lines," Red Alert said pragmatically. "But," he added with more emotion. "I will do my best to stay safe and... I'll miss your face, too."

She smiled though her eyes were glistening. She kissed him on the space between his chin and mouth.

"And when I come back, promise there will be no more making me sing," the Autobot insisted.

Mercedes laughed through her tears.

* * *

This was it. The end of an era. There were no more Decepticons on Earth, robbing the planet of resource and endangering its lifeforms. Optimus Prime would fight until the last bit of his spark to make sure they never came back. At the same time, Optimus hoped Autobots could return to Earth sometime in the future. Autobot City was his dream and Earth had become apart of the lives of several of his solders. Not to mention some of the inhabitants considered him family and he them, as much family as Cybertronians can consider another to be.

It was almost disheartening to see the Ark's lights go out as the entire base was shut down and locked up. Optimus had to tell himself that some of his Autobots were bound to come back, no matter what happened. Earth would never be far from their thoughts as they looked toward the future.

The Autobot leader stood in the dark alone as he watched the remaining bots under his charge transform and move off toward the location of the space bridge. Now it was just Optimus Prime, the Ark, and the sounds of the night.

And one other entity hovering silently beside him.

"I was wondering if you were ever going to approach me," Optimus Prime said conversationally.

"I have been attempting to gather my strength again," a soft male voice said. "And gather my courage." The light mist next to him slowly began to take form to that of a white and red mech with sharp features. "Lockdown and myself had been on your shuttle for as long as you have. Our sparks were twisted up on our own world, trapped, but unaware of anything but ourselves. It took Drift's presence to wake us up, to make us aware of what was really going on. I knew when that happened, it wouldn't be long until The Prime could finally sense us." The apparition looked at Optimus. "I knew this time was coming, but I still feel unprepared and so very unworthy to stand in your presence."

"Every spark is worthy to return to the Matrix," Optimus offered. "It is the right of all Primus' children. After that, answering for our deeds in life is up to him."

Wing nodded. "I wished nothing but the best for my people. I hope I will be judged for my intentions, not where my misguided actions have led me."

Optimus remained quiet.

"You have my protege with you. I leave him in your care. Drift is not innocent, but he has a good spark. It is up to him to redeem where I have failed. If he chooses."

"If he wishes to stay and join the Autobots he is welcome," Optimus told him. "Or if he leaves Cybertron, I shall not stop him. That's all I can offer."

"Then I cannot ask for more." Wing paused if to only extend his time a moment longer. "I suppose I am ready."

"Til all are one," The Prime said.

The ghost of Wing the Decepticon dissipated with the midnight breeze.

With one last look at the Ark, Optimus Prime transformed and rolled out toward the space bridge. When he arrived, the contraption had already opened a door to Cybertron and the Autobots were helping Skyfire get the last of his Cyber-Tech equipment through the portal. Red Alert was just driving up to the site in car mode, returning from taking Mercedes home. He looked dutiful but not entirely happy about leaving. He had never expected to become so attached to one of the inhabitants on this planet.

Spike and Carly were at the space bridge controls. They would be the ones closing up the portal from their end and would be the only ones with the codes to use it.

Optimus was the last one to go through. "Until we meet again, my friends."

"Good luck, Prime," Spike nodded.

"Be careful," Carly called back. "Tell everyone to be careful."

Optimus waved to both of them and then the last of the Cybertronians were gone from Earth.

* * *

Blitzangel anticipated having a harder time leaving the planet than she did. She was painfully aware Earth felt less like home these days and just more as a place she remembered fondly. Not that she could give it even a proper last look with the Autobots leaving the place in the middle of the night. Everything past the light of the space bridge was pitch dark out in the wilderness. As she walked through the portal, Blitzangel wondered if Earth wasn't her home any more, then where did she belong?

Stepping out the other side, the femme was greeted to an atmosphere with far better lighting. Cybertron was a planet of perpetual dusk, skies always painted with hues of deep purples and oranges. The entire world was just bright enough where you didn't need a flashlight, but that didn't mean its people went without. The city of Iacon glittered with a million different lights, bestowing its inhabitants with nearly daylight luminescence.

Blitzangel immediately felt out of place as she went from the quiet, barren wilderness to a city clustered with bodies. The Autobots she was familiar with disappeared into the crowds as strangers moved in, grabbing at equipment to relocate it to its proper place. The femme was quickly feeling overwhelmed. Despite the large city, so many bustling bodies seemed to suck up all the space. She backed up a few steps and a large hand grabbed hers.

She followed the arm up to Drift's face. He wasn't looking at her, but at the crowd, bodily placing himself between her and them as if protecting her. She knew he was feeling a bit out of his element as well. Drift had been on countless planets and had been among just as many bustling sprawls, but he had once been an enemy to this city. His first instincts were to stay on alert when exposed to so many Autobots.

Another mech grabbed Blitzangel's free wrist. Prowl.

"We're going to the tower," he informed her.

"Drift, too?"

Prowl looked from her to the neutral but didn't say anything. That was as close to acquiesce as she was going to get and Blitzangel pulled Drift along with them.

The entrance of Iacon tower was only a few paces away. When it was brought to the femme's attention, Blitzangel slowed her pace to take it all in. It was huge. Not just a building, but nearly a city in and of itself within its walls, challenged only in size by the massive Decepticon stronghold Darkmount. Blitzangel had vague recollections of the interior. She knew she had been inside it once, but it had happened so soon after her reprogramming that the memory did not stick too well in her processor. It looked like she was now going to get a far more thorough tour of the place.

As the three strolled through the very sizable main entrance of the tower, Drift let go of the femme's hand. He was self-conscious that the string of them looked a little ridiculous, walking in a line hand in hand. Blitzangel would have let go of Prowl's hand, too if the SIC had not had a firm hold on her wrist. Autobots immediately noticed her as they passed in the hall. Some were curious, most looked downright surprised. None ever met their optics with Prowl's gaze.

The police car led them to a glass internal elevator and Blitzangel leaned forward as the cab took them up. They passed level after level. All massive, all full of Autobots moving this way and that like a colony of worker ants. The elevator stopped at a desired level and Prowl once again led the way down the next hall.

Blitzangel opened her mouth to ask where they were going, but she was cut off before she could speak.

"Prowl." The voice was female and commanded Prowl's full attention. He stopped in his tracks.  
If Blitzangel had optics they would have gone wide. She suddenly wished she had taken more time to think of what she would do when she ran into this Autobot in particular. Desultory and afraid, the femme tried to back up behind the protective door panels so she wouldn't be seen, but Prowl's grip still held tight.

"Elita," Prowl greeted formally, unaware of Blitzangel's discomfort.

Elita One's proud countenance stood taller than he and she nodded toward his grip. "Is she your prisoner then?"

Prowl looked down at his hand and frowned slightly as he released his hold.

"Where were you planning on taking her?" The femme commander then asked.

"Seems a little primeval to drag a femme off to your bed chambers the second you get home," Jazz grinned as he walked up behind Elita One. She towered over him as well and he seemed perfectly fine with it.

Drift shot Prowl a very curious glance while Prowl was practically scowling at his fellow second. Jazz beamed like an idiot and Blitzangel felt better for him being there, as if Jazz could deflect any judgment Elita One would place upon her.

"That is not appropriate, even in jest," Prowl informed Jazz with a bit of danger in his voice.

"Relax Prowl, you know I'm teasing. No one takes me seriously," Jazz shot back.

"Entirely your fault. You are second in command, they _should_ take you seriously."

Jazz was ready with another flippant retort but Blitzangel didn't pay attention. She saw a glimpse of someone amongst the bots passing each other through the hallway. Someone she recognized and it made her fuel pump skip.

"Angel," Prowl said in alarm as she moved away from him and past Jazz.

"Hold on," she said.

"Angel baby, where you going?" Jazz called.

"I'll be right back," Blitzangel insisted as she hurried down the hall.

The bot she saw had quite a bit head start, but she was certain she could catch him. That is until a whole mob of bots came around the corner as if they were all a part of a meeting that had just been released. The femme looked on in exasperation as the object of her pursuit suddenly seemed so much more difficult to reach. She tried her best to make her way through the tightly packed crowd, but it wasn't easy. The flow of traffic was going the opposite way and despite her tiny, agile form, she wasn't navigating too fast.

Popping up on her toes, Blitzangel saw the head of the bot she was after, still walking away from her. He was heading for another elevator. If he got on that thing she would never be able to catch up to him. She doubled her efforts to push through the crowd.

"Sorry, sorry. Excuse me, gotta get through."

Anyone who heard her glanced at her in confusion. Blitzangel had forgotten she was still speaking in English and only Autobots who had been on Earth even had the language in their files. The mech was almost to the elevator and Blitzangel allowed herself to panic a bit.

"Wait!" she called as she pushed harder. So close, almost through the crowd. "Wait! Ratchet! Ratchet!"

The white mech, sensitive to his name, turned on his heel when he heard it, his expression suspicious. At first, he didn't see who was calling him until a thin body was finally able to slip out of the pack.

"Ratchet!"

His optics widened as Blitzangel ran toward him. But Ratchet wasn't alone. Firestar was at his side and she reflexively reached for her blaster when she saw the purple jet coming for them. Ratchet put an arm in front of her to prevent her from pulling her weapon, his expression unreadable. He almost took a step back as Blitzangel threw herself at him.

Ratchet stood there, stunned, a purple femme hanging around his neck. His hands hung in mid air as if, for the first time in his life, he had no idea what to do with them.

"I'm sorry," Blitzangel murmured into his shoulder. "I couldn't control myself. That wasn't me. I'm so sorry."

Ratchet eventually relaxed from his startled stance. His arms twitched, as if wanting to hold her back but knowing better. Eventually he relented and hugged the smaller form around the shoulders for a mere moment. He glanced in mild annoyance at Firestar's grin before lowering Blitzangel to the floor and pulling away from her.

He held her at arms length, hands on her slender shoulders as he looked her over. "It's alright. What matters is that you're feeling better now." One hand grabbed her chin and tipped her head from side to side. The femme's optic band made Ratchet frown a bit. He really didn't like it there, nor was he satisfied knowing there was still plenty of charred metal hiding behind it.

"I heard that you have been out discovering the cosmos with some Cybertronian neutral."

She grinned. "That I have. It's been an interesting ride."

"And when was the last time either one of you had any virus upgrades?"

"Uh..."

"That's not acceptable at all," the medic informed her. "You can't be wandering around the heart of Iacon carrying who knows what sort of extraplanetary nastiness. The last thing we need is an epidemic around here."

Taking her shoulders, he turned Blitzangel around and steered her down the hall. "You're getting a check up right now, young lady."

"But Perceptor and Wheeljack have already gone through my systems," she protested, dragging her feet.

"They're not medics. You come with me right now or I'll not clear you to so much as look more than three feet in any direction."

"Yes, sir," she relented with a defeated tone.

Ratchet turned to the orange femme at his side. "Firestar, if you'll excuse me. I have work to do."

She nodded with a secretive smile, looking pleased. "I'll catch up with you another time."

Firestar continued on to the elevator alone.

"Who was that?" Blitzangel wondered.

"None of your business," Ratchet shot back. "Keep marching."

The hallway was clearer now and their path took them right up to meet the other bots who had followed after Blitzangel's earlier flight. Ratchet nodded at the three officers in greeting and then zeroed his gaze on Drift's curious expression.

"And I'm sure your systems are a veritable cesspool of exotic mechanical filth."

Drift gave him a blank look before shrugging. "I feel fine."

Ratchet did not appear to be swayed. "Both of you are going to my clinic now." Taking each by the arm, the medical officer pulled them down the next hall. He gave a backward glance to the three officers. "You can have them back when I'm finished with them," he said to them all in general.

Elita One, Prowl and Jazz could do little else but watch them leave. None of them had the authority to circumvent the orders of the chief medical officer.

"So what was the plan before Ratchet?" Jazz asked.

"I was attempting to get her into some safe quarters and then give her a proper tour before she became overwhelmed," Prowl stated. "She was already looking uncomfortable the moment we arrived. I want to make this transition as smooth as possible for her."

"Giving her quarters in the tower, Prowl? You sure that's wise. She stands out enough as it is."

"I want her safe," Prowl insisted.

"She's in Iacon, Prowl. She is safe! Stop being so overly paranoid."

"If I may," Elita One cut in, "Optimus has told me all about her situation and has asked if I would take her under my wing. Educate her about our culture and being a femme. I also worry about the damage she's done under Decepticon influence. Not everyone is going to forget that easily."

"I understand," Prowl nodded. "But she is my responsibility. I will get her situated first and then I will look to your opinion on what we can do to help her integrate."

"As you wish," Elita relinquished. "Just let me know whenever and however I can help."

"I will, thank you." Prowl turned to a grinning Jazz. "What?"

"You know she's not going to take kindly to you planning the rest of her life, right?"

Prowl huffed some air as his door wings drooped a bit. "For the first little while, she may just have to deal with it. One day at a time, yes?"

Jazz clapped a hand on his shoulder. "One day at a time."

* * *

Of all the medical treatment Drift had received in the last two weeks, this was his least favorite. He couldn't recall, even when working for the Decepticons, being pushed around this much.

"And what is that one?" he demanded after Ratchet came after him with the third virus booster.

"Just lay down and take what's good for you," Ratchet shot back, helping Drift with the laying down part by pinning him by his collar.

Drift jumped as he was zapped in the neck. "That one hurt the most of all!" he protested.

Ratchet's only response was turning the neutral on his side and sticking a needle between his armor to get at a fuel line.

"Stop shocking and stabbing at me for two seconds, would you?"

Ratchet put most of the extracted energon into a test tube and marked it before putting it and the sample he drew of Blitzangel until a humming toaster-sized machine. "Stop complaining, I'm almost done."

The remaining of Drift's energon was studied by the doctor under a microscope.

"You know, your systems are remarkably clean for someone who's been out in space for so long. I've treated explorers with abhorrent maladies who had been out there but a fraction of that time."

"Yeah well, unlike those so called space explorers, I don't shove my interface in every strange mechanism I come across," Drift grumbled as he reattached all the stray armor Ratchet had yanked off during the examination. "I go out there to work, not get my jollies on by finding the fastest way to frag up my systems."

"No need to be crude about it in front of a female," Ratchet scolded.

Drift stared at him with incredulity. His short time in the med bay earned him just about every Cybertron swear there was from the MO.

"No worries here," Blitzangel offered from where she was dangling her legs off a second examination table. "I don't know what most of that means anyway."

"And you don't need to," Ratchet said as he got up and approached her with finality. "Both of you have a clean bill of health. Those boosters should take care of any straggling strains I may have missed." He put his hand on Blitzangel's shoulder. "I still want you to submit to a full body examination sometime soon."

She gave him a pained smile. "I know you do. In a way, so do I. But... give me some time first. I still have a hard time stomaching too much digging in here at one time." She motioned to her body.

"I don't blame you," Ratchet scowled. "Who knows how many idiots have been scrounging around in there helter skelter without any consideration to what they were damaging. Just tearing out everything like-" He stopped himself when he noticed Blitzangel's sickly expression.

"I'm sorry," he said in a tone softer than any he had used that day. Kissing the teal diamond on her forehead he added, "You're safe now. It will be okay."

"Drift has done a great job of keeping me safe until I could get home," Blitzangel offered, hoping it would encourage Ratchet to be nicer to the neutral.

"He wouldn't have had to if you hadn't fled Cybertron in the first place," Ratchet shot back.

Both frowned at each other before Ratchet turned away. "Okay, both of you get out of here. Before I find more tests to run on you."

"Wow, you just have everyone's favor, don't you?" Drift accused of Blitzangel when they were out of the clinic.

"Ratchet was stationed on Earth when I "died"." She made quotation marks with her fingers. "He was one of the bots who built my first body. So he's kind of protective of his work, I guess you could say."

"Ah, he's got some creator instincts instilled on you, huh?"

"Uh... I'm not sure. Creators are kind of like parents, right?" Blitzangel asked as they walked companionably down the hall. "I don't know if it's like that."

"Well that terrifying Autobot certainly cares about you. A lot of them do." Drift sounded a bit disconcerted at that statement.

Blitzangel just shrugged and smiled. "I care about people and they care back, that's how that works." Before Drift had long to process that iota of wisdom she continued "So before we get too much into everything else, what is it I can do for you? What do we need to get done for you, Drift?"

"Well I need to get out of Iacon and check out a few things, but I doubt that's going to happen."

Blitzangel was confused. "Why? The doctor cleared you. Why can't you leave Iacon?"

"Heh, I guess the leaving wouldn't be so tough as the coming back in."

"I don't think I understand."

"Well they call Iacon a city, but it's really just a vast military base. It's not like your cities on Earth. We're surrounded by walls on all sides. No one comes in and no one leaves without prior authorization from a commanding officer."

"Oh," Blitzangel answered, slight concern in her voice. She had never really thought about it before. She wondered how okay she would be with not being able to leave an area without permission.

"Not even if I just flew out and back in?"

"They might let you leave, but they might also shoot you down if you tried to get back into Icon without any authorization."

"I see."

"Heard you guys were done with the Doc," Jazz called before Blitzangel could ask any more questions. Prowl was at his side. "We're here to get you two situated. We've got some bunkers set aside and everything." Jazz approached Drift and motioned with his head. "You're coming with me."

"And Angel's not?" Drift wondered.

Jazz chuckled. "Sorry to burst your bubble, but the femmes don't live in the same bunkers as the mechs. Unless they're bonded, that is."

Jazz gave him a moment to challenge that statement, but Drift was amenable to that rule and nodded.

"I'll find you later, okay?" Blitzangel called after him.

Drift waved in confirmation and followed Jazz to the elevator. The two were quiet as they went down to the lower level and transformed, driving a few blocks to a large, rectangular building with rows of small windows on three different levels.

"These are just the basic soldier bunkers," Jazz said as he keyed in a code. The door beeped to signal it was unlocked and they went into the building. They continued down a long hallway, passing rows of numbered doors on either side. "We get neutrals showing up from space or the bowels of Cyebertron every once in a while. You'll find most bots around here are friendly to the neutrals cuz we want them to stay as new Autobot recruits. So you shouldn't have any trouble. No one knows about your past but a few commanding officers and we're going to keep it that way."

Drift just nodded. They stopped at one particular door and Jazz keyed in another code. The door slid open.

"Not the fanciest place, but the rooms are big enough and ya get space to yourself. Since you've been living in a cramped shuttle for the past few hundred years, I doubted you would mind."

Drift poked his head inside. It was a single room with a recharge station, cot and a small table with a chair. "Yeah, this is fine. Don't even worry about it."

"Here's your key codes." Jazz handed him a data stick. "Since Prime's told us you're still on the fence on this, we're just gonna treat ya like you're going to stay for now. I'll show you all the other places you need to know and in the meantime we'll relegate you to a commanding officer. We'll do what we can to make sure you don't have to fight any Decepticons for right now if you're not comfortable with it, but everyone's gotta pull their own weight somehow, ya know?"

"No, that's completely fine," Drift insisted, one hand brushing the hilt of a sword. "One thing I've never minded is fighting." His gaze fell off in the distance for a while, distracted by his own thoughts.

"Hey, listen," Jazz spoke up, catching his attention again. "I know you flighty types and I'd be lying if I said I'd be surprised when you leave, but don't just go disappearing in the middle of the night, huh? You make sure you say good-bye to our Angel good and proper before you go, understand? Otherwise you'll hurt her."

Drifts optics went wide as he waved off the accusation. "No, no. I'm not doing anything like that. I owe the Autobots. I pay off my debts. If I do leave, it won't be until we're even."

Jazz didn't quite smile but it looked as if he approved. "Alright then. Let me show you all the other places you'll need to know."

Meanwhile, Prowl led Blitzangel to another part of the tower.

"Gosh, this building is massive," the femme commented as they moved to a different section.

Currently they were smack dab in the middle of the structure. Blitzangel was leaning over the rail, gazing at the open space that afforded her a view five levels down. Iacon Tower wasn't just a single spire. It's base took up several blocks and held just as many different departments. Not only did the spire jut up to dizzying heights in the sky, but its reach extended lower than ground level, sinking deep into the planet. In the event of a devastating emergency, the tower's lowest levels were designed to protect the whole of the Autobot army.

Prowl led the way to the middle of the building and the single elevator that led to the tower itself. Once the elevator doors closed, he typed a code on the key pad. This elevator, Blitzangel noticed, only went up into the tower. It didn't have any access to the lower levels.

"This elevator is for authorized personnel only," Prowl explained as the car began to rise. Your code will give you access to only one floor, the one that houses your quarters."

"Um, okay," Blitzangel said softly. It felt weird to have security clearance codes just to get to her room. But then she rationalized that it was no different than having a key and locking up her apartment. It was just a different way to keep safe and have her privacy. She could get used to it.

The elevator stopped midway up the tower and Prowl once again led the way. There weren't as many winding hallways this far up. It was easy to remember how to find her room as Prowl typed in another code and the door to Blitzangel's new quarters slid open.

Timidly, the femme stepped inside, fully expecting something like her normal apartment she had when she was human. At least something bigger than the small closet she claimed on the Ark. Inside was more than she imagined. It was like a penthouse suite. The main room was a wide open space with wall to wall picture window in front of an impressive couch that could easily hold four or five large mechs. There was a small eatery with a private energon dispenser in one corner and a hallway on the opposite end.

"Wow," Blitzangel whispered as she leaned against the wall. It was so much space, more than she was used to. Even her parents hadn't had too much money. The houses they lived in were always small. This much open space made her feel uneasy.

"This is... Prowl, this is too much," she worried.

"You deserve more," he responded in such a way it caused her head to snap around. His gaze was on her, intense and serious. "You deserve an easier life than this."

She smiled at him, still pressed against the wall as if trying to take up as little space as possible. "I'm fine, really."

"Besides, you won't be here all alone. You will have a roommate."

Blitzangel's mouth fell open. Given Prowl's concern about even the appearance of impropriety, she immediately figured he had arranged for another female to share living spaces with her. Though Blitzangel did wish to have femme friends, she wasn't sure she was ready to be forced to be one of them like this. What if she acted funny compared to them? What if the femme totally saw through her and knew there was something off about her?

What if it was Elita One who was coming to room with her? That thought made Blitzangel even more uncomfortable. But the more she thought about what the femme commander had said to her earlier the more she believed she had already guessed who her roommate would be.

"Who of which will be here momentarily," Prowl continued without taking note of her anxiety. "Here are the codes to the elevator and your quarters." He handed her a data stick. "Now I apologize, but I must leave you for a while. We've had some disconcerting Decepticon activity lately and I already have several bots on my radio demanding my attention." He moved closer to her. "Please stay here for now. You'll have a full tour momentarily I just... I really need to get to my post."

"You're fine," she insisted. "I promise I'm not going anywhere. Go. Keep everyone safe."

Prowl nodded and was gone with the whoosh of the door behind him.

Blitzangel was left alone in the extravagant room. For a while she stayed by the wall as if the rest of her new quarters would eat her if she ventured too far. Then she finally found her courage and ventured forth to explore. The little kitchen-type niche was cute with energon dispenser and waste receptacle along with a bar table and stools.

The purple femme approached the inordinate picture window carefully. Even though she had the ability of flight, the mere size of the view made the human part of her a bit leery. Eventually she drew up to the thick glass and gingerly rested her fingertips against it. Out her window she saw the sprawl of Iacon before her. Her quarters were only half way up the tower, but there were very few other buildings that could match her height. From her vantage point, she could see past the bright lights of the city to the fortified wall that did indeed seem to create a border as far as she could see. Past the border, there were no more lights and the dilapidated landscape fell into shadow. In that shadow, further than her view afforded her, Blitzangel knew Darkmount was out there somewhere.

Blitzangel sighed and backed up just a bit. Prowl had no need to worry about her leaving. She would come and go as she pleased at the Ark on her home planet, but here she was lost. Drift's warning had put caution in her, squelching any urge to want to fly. It almost made her fear the airspace of Iacon if it meant she could be mistaken for an intruder and shot down.

It wasn't that she had any place else to go anyway. This city, this whole planet was a stranger to her. She didn't know where anything was. She didn't even know how to find the bots she knew. If she left this room, she would just get overwhelmed and lost. It did feel like a prison a little bit, but Blitzangel reminded herself this was only temporary. Once she learned her way around and found her place in this community then this place would feel more like home. She just had to continue to be optimistic and keep working hard and everything would get better.

On that thought, she found the curiosity to explore down the hall. There were two other rooms on the end. One was small. It looked like someone had cleaned out their office and slid in a cot on a last minute notice. The other room was a full master bedroom with a wide recharge berth and a shower room. Another wide window gave her the same view as the main room. Clearly the quarters were meant for only one bot. Blitzangel wondered if these were meant to be Prowl's quarters. Or if he just had quarters like these. If so, where was he staying?

"Honey, I'm home," called a male voice from the door.

Blitzangel hurried out to find Bluestreak laughing at his own joke.

"Hey," he greeted. "I guess we're roomies."

"You're the one staying with me," Blitzangel asked. Her voice sounded incredulous, but she was smiling. That Prowl, she never understood his thought process.

"Yup," Bluestreak confirmed. "I hope you're okay with that."

She laughed a little herself, relieved. "I am very okay with that. But the bedrooms, they're not really the same size-"

"You can't have the smaller room," Bluestreak insisted. "Prowl would kill me."

"I see. Prowl's not... he didn't give up his room so I could have it, did he?"

Bluestreak's mouth fell open as he tried to answer. "You know, I'm not really sure. I know there's several rooms like this one in the tower. Maybe not all of them were in use."

He walked in as if never had been inside a room such as this himself. "Looks like it's going to be a lot of fun though. Maybe you'll get used to it."

Blitzangel just smiled and shrugged. Maybe she would get used to a lot of things. There was nothing to be done about it. They would just have to wait and see.

The two of them felt the disturbance more than heard it. An explosion so powerful it made the tower shutter just a little. They stared out the panoramic window to see a bright orange flame in the shadowed distance.

"That's not good," Bluestreak said. "I should probably report in. When I get back, I'll take you around town and show you everything, okay? Don't go anywhere."

Blitzangel hardly got a chance to respond before Bluestreak was out the door. She was left in the middle of waving, once again alone in the lavish room. With shoulders sagged, she shuffled back to the window, watching the orange blaze amidst the deep shadowed blue.

Pulling back, she could see her own reflection in the glass as well and she looked at her reflected self as if another bot was standing with her.

"Well, looks like this is my life now. Better get used to it."


	20. Chapter 20: The Call Home

Rising Generations  
Chapter 20: The Call Home

Two Months Earlier

The sleek dark shadow of a ship slowed its approach as the metal planet of Cybertron came into its sights. The _Renegade II_ seemed to pause and assess the metal world before subtly changing its course to ensure its landing destination was on the correct side of the planet. The pitch black hull rendered it nearly invisible in the darkness of space, with its streamlined frame and jutting artillery marking it as a warship. It craftily remained in the shadows, away from planetary detection until its orbit traveled over Decepticon airspace. Then it began its descent toward the sharp spires of Darkmount.

The Decepticon stronghold signaled landing permission as the _Renegade II _entered its territory. A few random soldiers came out to inspect the ship as it touched down on one of the higher tiers and cut its engines with a hiss. A flight of stairs folded out from the belly of the starship and a tall, sleek Decepticon with sharp features was the first to step off. He surveyed the place with sharp, intelligent optics, his impressive build moving easily as if he were a smaller model. Just a glance at his form, the way he moved, could tell one that he was built to be dangerous, built to kill.

"Good to be home, huh sir?" one of his subordinates asked from behind him.

"It is, indeed," Overlord confirmed in even tones. How long had it been since he had stepped foot on his home planet? It was only shortly after the regeneration of Cybertron that he had taken his crew out to maraud among the stars. For hundreds of years they had pillaged, conquered and destroyed, returning riches and weapons to their home planet. All in the name of the Decepticons.

Good times were had by all of his crew. Life was so much better in the Decepticons without Megatron around. Shockwave allowed more freedom of the troops, more room for new ideas, growth. Which was why Overlord frowned when he noticed a red seeker watching him from one of the spire windows. That was no drone. It could be none other than Starscream. And where there was Starscream, there was most assuredly Megatron.

He wasn't the only one who had noticed.

"Looks like the buckethead finally found his way back to Cybertron," Overlord's second, Turmoil, mumbled. "I guess the fun's over."

Overlord could not prevent the growl that rumbled deep in his chest. "Megatron is leader of the Decepticons in name only. Too long has he been absent from Cybertron. He is obsolete. While we have seen battles with countless different lifeforms, he has spent his last years playing with Optimus Prime on some mudball planet. He remembers not what it is like to be a true warrior and soon the rest of the Decepticons will see it as well. They will demand a new leader and put that old relic out of his misery."

"A new leader like you, boss?" Turmoil returned jovially.

"If needed. Though I'd rather be free to do what I wish and leave Shockwave to take command."

"You know we're all with you; you just say the word."

Overlord nodded slightly. "Let's just go meet our esteemed leader and see how it goes."

* * *

Thundercracker surveyed the whole of Decepticon territory from his perch high atop the tallest of Darkmount's spires. He liked being up high. Up in the thinner atmosphere, sometimes he would catch a few solar breezes to play against the panels of his wings. He had never been a fan of Earth. Sure, all other planets were just as organic, but Earth had too much water, too little land. However, it had a constant breeze that Thundercracker had quietly enjoyed whenever he was out of the base. Here on Cybertron, the air was stagnant and still, with only tiny hot puffs floating around here and there. It paled in comparison to the cool breezes of Earth, but Thundercracker was still glad to be home.

Not that he had been given much time to enjoy just being on his planet of origin lately. Especially after _the incident_. In a flicker of an optic, the entirety of Darkmount seemed to get flipped upside down. Four high-profile soldiers had disappeared all at once: Soundwave, Blitzangel and Shockwave's two lieutenants, Ransack and Beatback. There had been evidence of a scuffle in one of the lower levels of the main spire, the same level on which Soundwave often worked. That was all they had found.

Soundwave had only had Ravage with him when he disappeared. Lazerbeak had been working and Rumble and Frenzy only spent time cooped up in Soundwave's chest for transport. They were the first to sound the alarm that something had happened to Soundwave. Somehow, with their unique link to the larger Decepticon, they had known he was in danger.

A full alert had been sounded through the base and Megatron practically turned the place upside down trying to figure out what had happened. Shockwave wasn't too far behind, with his trusted lieutenants missing as well. Tensions were high in Darkmount. Megatron had wanted to rip open something at the infiltration of his home base, but had no idea whether to direct his murderous intent toward the Autobots or toward traitors within. Blitzangel was the highest on the list of suspects. She was deadly and swift, and perhaps so cunning no one had seen through her ruse until she saw the right time to strike.

The base remained on high alert until a few days later when a weak homing beacon appeared on their scanners. Soundwave. Megatron went himself with a group of seekers to investigate. Thundercracker was with him. He could hardly believe his optics when he landed. There was his missing teammate, Blitzangel, dragging Soundwave's damaged body with her tiny form. Both had been torn to shreds and were leaking heavily from their wounds.

Thundercracker recalled feeling very relieved to see her. It wasn't only that she was still functioning, but that she hadn't betrayed them after all. But then she had spoken to them and the mere sound of her voice was chilling. She credited herself with saving Soundwave's spark and Ravage. Then she dismissed herself to her own fate, wandering off to die alone.

Megatron had allowed the ludicrous request, startling all present. But as he thought about it, Thundercracker wasn't all that surprised. Megatron was getting sick of hearing the name Blitzangel. He was tired of being suspicious of her treachery; he was tired of questioning his own orders to rebuild her into one of them. It all came down to the fact that Megatron did not trust any femme anyway and he was more than happy to let the only female in his ranks wander off to die after one last valiant effort to serve his cause.

How many times had Thundercracker thought about defying his leader and going back for the femme's body? She wasn't really alive to begin with. Didn't that mean her spark could never go out? That she could never really die? Was her body still out there, rusting away from disuse, waiting for someone to repair her, bring her back to life? Couldn't that someone be him?

Not that Thundercracker ever had the time to even plot such a thing. Soundwave's recovery revealed a well of fruitful information. The real traitors had been Shockwave's lieutenants. They had been working with female Decepticons who had been thought long since wiped off the planet. But no, there was still a nest of them scuttling down in the dark, plotting. They had penetrated the very ranks of the Decepticons right under Shockwave's nose and Megatron was furious. The part of his forces that wasn't checking every single soldier to confirm his identity and gender was put to the task of locating and exterminating every single female Decepticon who dared think she could get the upper hand over the mighty Megatron.

Even the Autobots had been forgotten for a time due to Megatron's current obsession. The shifts were long and brutal under the new orders, leaving very little time to regret what had been left behind in the past. The only thing that had been calming the Megatron's fire was the sudden return of several Decepticon ships like _the Renegade II_. Decepticons that had once been scattered in space were coming home under no direct orders, of their own volition. Increasing his power always made Megatron happy and the extra bot-power put less strain on the resident solders.

Thus Thundercracker managed to find a few klicks of quiet time to himself now and again.

"Yo, Cracker!"

Well, almost to himself.

Thundercracker turned to his wingmate as Skywarp sauntered up to him.

"What you doing up here? You always look so melancholy when I find you standing around alone." The black and purple seeker rested his back against the rail, elbows propped up.

Thundercracker didn't answer, but continued to stare out into the distance. Skywarp peered over his wingspan to follow his line of sight.

"You still thinking about the femme, Cracker? Don't bother yourself. She's scrap by now anyway."

"It was such a waste," Thundercracker replied quietly. "We could have repaired her. There was no need to let her go."

"Meh, you know Megs was getting sick of her anyway," Skywarp waved off with a shrug. "Sure, she was a good soldier, but the bickering between Starscream and Shockwave about her was even getting on my nerves. Still..." Skywarp turned around to gaze at the distance. "It was kinda nice to have four members again, wasn't it? Our maneuvers always work better with four."

Thundercracker made a soft sound of agreement.

"Just hasn't ever been the same without-" Skywarp cut himself off. "Well, it doesn't matter much any longer, I guess. No sense lamenting lost soldiers. We keep getting new ones. Another ship landed today. We've really been beefing up our numbers lately. Megatron's in the best mood I've seen since all this craziness happened."

"I just wonder where they're all coming from," Thundercracker responded calmly. "We didn't call them back. They've been scattered through the galaxy doing their own thing. Some hardly swear fealty to our leader any longer. Yet, they all just suddenly returned at the same time. What do you think that means?"

"Dunno, I heard some of the new guys say they felt a pull. Like Cybertron itself was calling them home."

"A pull," Thundercracker repeated softer. "What do you think Cybertron wants with us?"

Skywarp just grinned. "What would Cybertron do with_out _us?"

* * *

Two Weeks Ago

Overlord gazed over the small group gathered in secret in the bottom levels of Darkmount. He had been plotting since the moment his foot left his ship. If he was returning home from freedom only to be placed under the thumb of Megatron, then something had to change.

"So we are all in agreement," Overlord announced. "Megatron's tenure is done. His time off-planet has made him soft and senile. Even now he still digs for femmes and some mythical power source they supposedly built. All based on a few bits of conversations Soundwave picked up while barely online. These are not the actions of a leader with a clear vision for the future. And Cybertron needs vision. It needs a future. That is why it called us home. It's calling for change."

There was the murmur of general agreement among the cabal.

"It is time for the Decepticons now, time for us to regain our former glory. Time to take charge of our home. Time to rid us of those fragging Autobots once and for all. Time to claim what is ours! Cybertron wants this!"

The murmurs turned into more of a battlecry as the rest of the room roared their agreement with each statement.

They were immediately silenced as a secret doorway at the back of the room slid open and Megatron himself stepped through. Lazerbeak was perched on his shoulder and stared at the startled crowd with accusing red optics. The Decepticon leader was flanked by Soundwave, Starscream and several seeker drones filing out of the tunnel, all their weapons pointing at the would-be usurpers.

"And what makes you think you know what Cybertron wants, Overlord?" Megatron challenged.

Other Decepticons cowered in the face of their leader, but Overlord held his ground and met Megatron's optics defiantly. "I believe in Cybertron; I believe in the Decepticon cause. But I no longer believe in you, Megatron. You have been away from us for too long. You have lost your edge and lost your way. We need a new leader, one who can lead us to our future as the victors of this war. That may have been you at one time, but no longer."

"I see." Megatron stared him down, both mechs nearly equal in size. "Bring him," he ordered his drones. "Bring them all."

A few of the others trembled in fear, but Overlord prepared himself as he was cuffed. He knew the consequences of being caught plotting against such a bot, whether he was outdated or not. Overlord prepared himself to see a cell and then later, his death sentence. But instead, his fellow conspirators were led away from the holding cells, up to the higher tiers. Up to the largest landing pad the spires had to offer.

As the cuffed Cons were presented to the open air, they found themselves surrounded by the spectators of their brothers in arms.

Megatron looked pleased and confident at the setup.

"My Decepticons," he announced to all. "Your compatriot Overlord has made some serious accusations toward your leader. He claims I have grown weak and I have lost track of our ultimate goals. Many of you have silently or even openly agreed. I believe in the Decepticon cause as much as all of you and I agree, the strongest of us should lead." He nodded in Overlord's directions and the two seeker drones at the prisoner's side removed his cuffs. "That is why I am giving you all the opportunity to witness that the strongest of us still does."

Overlord stood there stoically for a moment, letting his present situation sink in. He would not be treated as a traitor, but as an example to all who dare harbor doubts regarding Megatron's power. The question was by what means Megatron would use him for this purpose. Would it be too much to hope the Decepticon leader would offer him a fair chance?

Megatron, for his part, was smiling at that hesitant expression. He had wanted to put Overlord in his place since the first time they met. In many Megatron saw the jealousy, the hunger for his type of position and power. Megatron liked aspirations in his troops. But in Overlord he saw something more discerning, a lack of fear in his leader. That would not do. Megatron was fear to allies and enemies alike. He would put fear anew into all his soldiers and Overlord would be the conduit.

"Overlord," Megatron continued, stepping closer. "I hear your challenge and I accept. Now is your chance. Prove which one of us is worthy to lead."

"A challenge," Overlord repeated as his fellow Decepticons roared at the opportunity to be wildly entertained. "What are you plotting, Megatron? What's the catch?"

"There is no catch," Megatron assured him as he removed his arm cannon. "You and I shall fight one on one. No weapons. The victor walks away the true lord and master of all this." He gestured grandly at all that surrounded them and the Decepticons cheered again.

High above, with grand box seats to the event, Starscream watched all with a sly grin on his face.

"Here you are, Screamer," Skywarp said as he walked up to his flight commander. "You look happy. I'm surprised you helped play a part to nark out Overlord to Megatron. I thought you wanted to see the big gray take the final dive."

"To lose one tyrant for another was never my goal," Starscream said, not taking his optics from the spectacle below. "At least with Megatron I know how he operates, how he thinks. I will know when it will be the right time to strike, when he is the weakest. To get a new leader would be to learn all over again. That is, if he doesn't demote us first."

"I see," Skywarp almost frowned. Almost. Then his grin came back. "I guess we know who we're rooting for then."

Below, Overlord hardly believed his audials. A one on one fight with Megatron. No tricks, no weapons. He would have paid handsomely for a chance like this. He accepted the challenge and the two massive mechs faced off in the impromptu arena. They circled each other, optics trained on the opponent. Focused, blocking out all the cheers and the noise.

Overlord appraised his opponent from top to bottom. Megatron was big, but he was not the same warrior he used to be. When the Decepticon leader had left Cybertron, shortly afterward the entire planet shut down. All Cybertronians fell dark and dormant. But when the planet revived itself enough to hold life, the inhabitants came back online. That was nearly a thousand years before Megatron woke up from his own sleep on Earth.

And while Megatron had slumbered, Overlord and his crew had been honing their skills in battle. While Megatron played around with Prime's Autobots, not killing a single one, Overlord had shed blood and conquered in the name of the Decepticons. Megatron's time was over. Overlord was sure he was faster, stronger, with a fiercer urge to win. This would be no contest.

Megatron remained patient as the two circled each other. Neither made the first move. Overlord was surprised Megatron didn't rush him. It seemed like something their leader would do. The spectators started booing.

"Come on, then," Megatron smirked at the blue and gray mech. "You are the challenger. Your underlings expect a good show if you are to become their leader."

"_Your_ underlings expect a great show of strength and prowess from their leader," Overlord chided back. "Not a fear of throwing the first punch."

"As you wish." Megatron rushed him without hesitation.

Overlord dodged the first fist rushing toward his face and retaliated with a punch of his own. It hit true, knocking Megatron's head violently to the side. Decepticons all around them roared at the first hit as Megatron slowly righted himself, stretching his muscle cables.

"Not a bad hit, Overlord. Always remember I allowed you one. Now I promise it will be your last."

Before the blue mech could even respond, he was in Megatron's clutches. There was no sparring, no exhibition of skills as the two mechs duked it out. Megatron's hand was just tearing into his chest and in the blink of an optic he yanked away, sparking wires and gushing liquids in his wake. Overlord reacted purely on instinct, scrambling to get out of the hold. He swung at Megatron again and again, trying to put him on the defensive. But Megatron just ducked out of the way and then rushed the blue mech with his whole body.

The hit felt like a freight train as Overlord tumbled several feet along the launch pad. Megatron stormed over, picking up his entire body with ease and slamming him back to the floor so hard all his systems shook with alarm. Megatron continued to beat the stunned body with punishing blows, each hit splattering new stains on everything within reach. Megatron tore an arm from its socket and threw it into the crowd and the Decepticons went wild.

Overlord sputtered and spasmed on the ground while Megatron looked down with satisfaction.

"Still think you are as strong as I, Overlord?"

The downed Decepticon twitched as he tried to process what had happened to him so quickly. "I-I don't understand. I have been engaged in the art of war for hundreds of years. No one has ever beaten me. How... how did you?"

Megatron planted his foot heavily on the twitching mech. Overlord groaned at the pressure as Megatron grabbed his head, turning his audials to listen to him.

"You have forgotten one important thing," he said in a low, gravelly voice. "I am MEGATRON!"

With a savage snarl, Megatron tore the head right from his victim's shoulders, a stream of twitching wires snaking out from the neck like a neurotic jellyfish. The Decepticons roared as Megatron kicked the body across the makeshift arena and then tossed the head far up over the crowd where it disappeared into the shadows below.

With one last disgusted glance at the headless body, Megatron flicked the mechanical ichor from his fingers and paraded off to where Shockwave was waiting. The crowd was chanting "Megatron! Megatron! Megatron!"

"Shockwave," Megatron said coolly. "Dispose of the body, but you may keep the spark to do with as you wish. And get someone to clean up this mess."

"As you command, my lord," Shockwave nodded as Megatron disappeared inside.

"Well that was over too quick," Skywarp frowned from his vantage point above. "I was hoping for more of a show."

Starscream was about to remark when a dark shadow slunk toward him and rubbed against the red seeker's leg.

"Well, well, Ravage. You're looking a little dirty. Where have you been all this time? If you're looking for Soundwave, he's down there."

Ravage sent a communication signal to the flight commander. It was in simple text, hardly even a proper sentence, but it was the best the tape could communicate in words.

Starscream's mouth twitched in intrigue. "Been down searching for Deceptifemmes, have you?"

Ravage stretched up the seeker's shin and Starscream picked him up, patting the feline's head. "Then let's go visit Soundwave and see what you've found."

* * *

Autobot intelligence noticed when the Decepticons stopped focusing their activities inward and were readying themselves for attack. But even then, the target and the ferocity in which it was hit was not anticipated. It was a small outpost outside the city walls, just barely within Autobot territory. The Decepticons descended upon it like a brush fire, demolishing the station in a mighty wave, choking it with sheer numbers.

The Autobots stationed at the outpost were overwhelmed instantly, most of them killed in the raid. But the response from Iacon was swift and soon there was a full-out battle to save whatever survivors and territory could be salvaged.

Drift wasn't sure if he was officially part of the Autobot ranks yet during his temporary stay at Iacon. But the emergency beacon had been sounded and he figured, why not get a little excitement? He followed the rest of the soldiers as they scrambled to respond to the Decepticon attack. His sleek vehicle mode maneuvered through the phalanx of Autobots easily and he found himself a bit surprised to see a red semi leading the charge.

"Wow, Optimus Prime is already out in the field?" He commented to the vehicle next to him, a deep red, heavier model. "He just got back to Cybertron. Is this customary for him?"

"Prahm goes to every attack Megatron leads," Ironhide responded. "Don't like to let anyone take him on but hisself. That's how he is."

Drift was silently impressed.

"Where'd you come from anyway?" Ironhide asked. "You got no insignia on you. You a neutral?"

"For now," Drift responded noncommittally. "Just trying out the Autobots to see if its a good fit." And with that, his faster mode sped ahead of the heavier built Autobots.

Because of his speed, Drift was on the front line by the time they reached the edge of Autobot territory. He didn't even slow down as he transformed, causing sparks as his metal feet slid along the ground, broadswords in each hand. His blade sank into the nearest Decepticon- a drone- without a second thought.

Internally, Drift had wondered if he would hesitate fighting on the side of the Autobots. But his limbs moved on automatic whenever an enemy was near. Fighting was fighting, battle was battle. The who and the why didn't change anything whether he was in an arena or on the battlefield. Killing was his function and he did it well.

But despite the quick response of the Autobots, the Decepticons had already decimated the area. The outpost had toppled and there was nothing worth fighting for. The only reason to keep fighting was to evacuate any survivors from the outpost. Optimus Prime and Jazz orchestrated their rescue attempts, focusing the brunt of their numbers to that end. Jazz and his team managed to slip inside the building to do a sweep. Optimus and the rest of his troops remained outside to stave off the worst of the attack.

Even though the Prime intended to face off against Megatron himself, he never got the chance. Megatron was in the middle of the swarm and Optimus hardly ever got a look at him. It was rare (but not unheard of) for Megatron not to seek him out in battle if the Decepticon leader found himself something more important to tend to. Optimus, too, had given himself an important job. He had to keep the exit clear.

As Jazz's team spilled out and signaled the full evacuation of all survivors, Prime then turned his efforts into offering cover fire for their retreat. Jazz himself was the last one out and had a great view of a Decepticon on one of the higher levels of the outpost aiming right for the Optimus Prime's head.

"Prime!" he shouted, though it already felt a moment too late.

The Decepticon pulled the trigger, but Optimus ducked as the shot went wild, missing him only by a hair.

The triggerman Decepticon twitched, hands still clutching his weapon as a trickle of energon streamed from his mouth. He looked down at his chest, at the broad blade poking out the front of his armor. A glowing blue ooze dripped off the sharp metal, sparkling like diamonds as it hit the ground. The pure essence of his spark was going out.

Drift wiggled his sword to loosen the blade before yanking it out. The Decepticon fell to the ground, all lights out, truly dead. The white neutral flicked his blade to clean it and then hopped the rail to land in a crouch next to the Autobot leader below.

"I believe you just saved my motherboard," Optimus admitted. His spark wouldn't have been damaged with a head shot, but damage to the memory and personality files stored in the head was a type of death to their kind. If too much were damaged, Optimus would never have been the same again, perhaps even no longer able to bear the Matrix.

"Hey, I still owe the Autobots," Drift replied with a nonchalant shrug. "I figure saving their leader would put me near to - as I believe as they say on Earth - our being even-stevens."

Optimus clapped him on the shoulder in gratitude before both returned to battle to protect the rear as Optimus called for a retreat. Jazz watched the exchange thoughtfully, a minute frown on his face before he also turned back to the task at hand: getting everyone home as safely as possible.

* * *

From one of the higher levels of Iacon tower, Blitzangel watched through the panoramic windows of her new, spacious quarters. The actual battle was far away, too far to see with the naked optic. But there had been an explosion and flames tinted the permanent haze of Cybertron's atmosphere to a pink and orange hue.

It was almost torturous to be there, standing alone in the middle of a big room, watching a fire in the distance. Knowing that there were bots out there fighting, hurting, possibly dying while she had been ordered to stay put made her antsy. Multiple times, the idea of finding the nearest exit and jetting off to the battlefield fluttered through Blitzangel's processor. The impulse was both exciting and terrifying and she was unprepared for the emotional flip-flopping that ran through her system.

The purple femme paced around the room. Her tanks felt like they were full of molten energy and the nervousness was igniting her skin, making her uncomfortable in her own shell. She needed something to do, something to keep her mind off of the worry. A dismal look around the open and very empty space didn't help. Blitzangel decided that, orders or not, she had to get out of that room or she was going to drive herself insane.

The med bay seemed like a good place to go. It was one of the few locations Blitzangel knew how to find and she might be helpful down there. Even if Ratchet gave her the most menial job in the world, she would gratefully take it.

The CMO looked up at her as she came in, suspicious at her entry.

"Everyone went out fighting and I keep feeling nervous," she admitted softly while hugging the doorway. "Can I be of assistance in here? I can clean. And when wounded come back, I can help."

Ratchet's optics flickered in recollection, as if he had either forgotten her medical training or fully expected it to have been wiped permanently during her Decepticon upgrade.

"Actually, you came at the right time," Ratchet admitted. "I'm already getting reports back. We have several wounded returning as we speak, some serious. I'm going to need every sort of medical personnel available."

Blitzangel instantly lit up and stepped further into the room. "Anything you need, Ratchet, I will do it," she said with enthusiasm.

"Good." He stood and walked toward her, heading out the door. "Come with me. We're going to meet them downstairs."

The smaller femme trailed after him toward an elevator. The cab felt a bit warm to Angel; maybe her heat sensors were malfunctioning. She'd have time to look at that later.

"I'll be triaging the wounded," Ratchet said as they descended to ground level. "The worst of the damaged will be kept downstairs in the emergency bay. That's where you and I will be working. The rest we'll send upstairs for non-emergency staff to look at."

Blitzangel wanted to comment on how cool it was that he had a staff, but she knew he would just bark at her to stop goofing off and get her head in the game. So she kept quiet and put on her business face as they reached the ground floor and walked to the emergency bay.

The first of the wounded were already being carted in. Blitzangel felt herself locked in place at the sight. There had been a few times at the Ark when the Autobots shambled in after a Decepticon skirmish. This was nothing like those times. These bots looked like they had truly been through a war zone.

Torn and ragged bodies were dragged in, some barely conscious, some in stasis lock. Some were tinted with the greyness of death. Blitzangel stared at them the longest. Outside her blurred memories of being a Decepticon puppet, she had never really examined a dead Cybertronian body before. To her, they still didn't look so different from the living. Just pop in a new battery and start it right up. They weren't really dead, were they?

"Hey!" Ratchet barked, slicing right through her thoughts. "There's still the living to worry about. Get your processor functioning or get out!"

Blitzangel was instantly at his side again, ready to work. She felt that part of her processor kick in, the secretive part with more intelligence than she had alone.

Ratchet was already knee-deep in his element and the femme got a front seat view of how a real CMO worked. Medical jargon flowed from his mouth as he barked orders to the other medics, dividing up the wounded into different sectors, only needing to glance at their conditions. As the least urgent cases were being moved out of the way, Ratchet continued to triage while he shoved his hands into the chest of the first emergency case.

It took Blitzangel a moment to realize some of the orders were being barked at her and she scrambled to hand him the different tools he required. The first patient's chest was nothing but a singed, gaping hole. Ratchet worked fast to stop leaks, rerouting energon and manually setting the patient into stasis lock to protect the spark from any more trauma. Then they moved to the next body.

Blitzangel did her best to keep up. She listened to that inner voice and watched carefully. After a few patients, she found her groove: anticipating what Ratchet would need and offering a pair of smaller hands when his were too big to get down into the injuries quickly. Soon the femme was moving just as fast as he was, clamping down energon leaks and sustaining those with spark energy too weak to be put in stasis until they had stabilized. Soon the two were working in tandem like a well-oiled machine and moving through patients at a breakneck speed. Blitzangel just wished she'd stop getting dizzy. Was that her reaction to the aftermath of so much damage? Or maybe her fear of finding a familiar face among the dead? She tried not to think about it; she tried to keep all her focus on the task at hand.

Either way, she must have been doing a good job. Ratchet's hands were otherwise occupied around a compromised spark casing when another wave of wounded came in. He ordered her to go locate the worst of the lot and get them over to him. Blitzangel obediently moved to assist, along with the other medical staff.

A pair of mechs immediately caught her attention. The orange one was dented and singed, but his optics were bright and he was standing under his own power. He was holding up a dark green mech who looked like he had been caught in the explosion. He was charred up one side with part of his hip and abdomen just a gaping space. Miraculously, he was still online, expression in a pained grimace and optics barely flickering with power.

Blitzangel's heart went out to the wounded stranger. He was the first one she had looked at as an entire being instead of just a wound that needed to be patched up. She approached the duo to motion them to Ratchet's corner and immediately received a blaster in her face.

"Decepticon!" the orange mech barked in alarm.

He pulled the trigger as Blitzangel rushed the outstretched hand, yanking his wrist up so the shot would only harm the ceiling instead of herself or one of the patients.

"I'm not-" she tried to explain before the bot's free hand punched her in the side.

"I'll rip you to shreds! You did this to us!"

The orange mech was over twice her size. Blitzangel stumbled back before using the wall to give the bot a double kick in the midsection. He floundered backward, tipping over a cart full of medical equipment as he fell to the floor. Blitzangel rushed over to his forgotten companion who had collapsed onto the ground. Fluids were now gushing from the body at an alarming rate. Blitzangel shoved her hands right into the gaping hole to staunch the flow, but it was coming from too many places.  
"Somebody! I need some clamps, a welder! Hurry!"

Medical personnel ran every which way and the femme was soon pushed away to make room for those who had the tools to help. Blitzangel was frozen in place as she caught a glimpse of the wounded bot's face. The dim light in the optics had gone out completely, but the body had not grayed yet.

Hold on, she pleaded in her head. Don't die on me. Not one of mine. Not one of the ones I tried to save.

Ratchet was soon in the thick of all the scrambling as two officers were dragging the enraged orange mech away.

"You!" Ratchet stabbed a red finger at Blitzangel. "You're finished, get out."

"But Ratchet, I want to help-"

"You helped enough. Get out."

She tried not to let those words hurt as she scrambled out of the emergency bay, her feet slick with energon. Ratchet didn't mean it the way he had said it. She _had_ been a big help, but after that incident she couldn't stick around while they tried to sort things out. Lives were still in danger. Leaving was the fastest way for everyone else to get back to work.

Covered in the life fluid of soldiers, Blitzangel thought her best bet was to go back to her room and try out the shower. Staying hidden behind a closed door now sounded like a very good idea. If only... if only the ground would stop swaying. Her fuel tank complained and the femme wondered if maybe seeing so many injuries had made her queasy. But she hadn't felt sick at the sight of the wounds, had she?

"Blitzangel."

The sound of her name made her focus again. She turned to see a massive blue chest in front of her. Trying to look up at the face made her a bit dizzy.

"Are you alright?" Ultra Magnus asked primly, data pad in one hand and only slight concern in his voice.

"These juices aren't mine. I just got out of the emergency bay helping Ratchet." She looked down at her hands, feeling goo crusting in her finger joints. "He said... I could go clean up."

"You... helped Ratchet?" Ultra Magnus repeated dubiously.

"I have medical training. There were a lot of bots wounded."

"Yes, indeed," the mech agreed regretfully. He gave the femme another look when she wobbled a bit. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Blitzangel was about say something when her fuel tanks suddenly hitched violently and she blacked out.

* * *

Sunstreaker poked his head out of the doorway as surreptitiously as he could, just one optic and a head fin poking out. The hallway seemed clear and quiet. Now was the time to make his move. With the proper posture for a mech up to something, he slunk out of the room, shoulders hunched. The door slid slowly shut, but he caught it before it closed entirely, taking one last peek inside. The insensate female body was still lifeless on the berth, completely in recharge.

His optics traveled over the back of her form one more time. The dip of her waist, the generous curve of her supple hips. Hips that now had tiny, finger sized dents in them. Dents with flecks of yellow paint.

Sunstreaker flinched in personal pain as he let the door finally shut and block Roulette's body from his view. The things he had done last night. All night long. With her. Primus, he hated himself.

But it wasn't his fault, was it? Not with the emotional roller coaster he had endured the past few weeks. Sunstreaker wasn't like his brother, an emotional chameleon who felt what was needed for the situation, no more, no less. Just a mirror to give out exactly what was put in. No, the yellow twin was the opposite. Emotions always hit Sunstreaker hard, tearing up the neat corners of his mentality like a tornado. Whether happiness, sadness, depression or frustration, he felt each at full force and held nothing back.

Seeing Crystal again roiled every emotion in him. No, not Crystal, Blitzangel. Someone he knew, yet part of a stranger now. His emotions had pin-balled as he tried to figure out how he felt about her now. Nothing fit as well any longer and the femme was teetering just as much as he was. The wise thing to do was keep his distance from her until he had sorted everything out.

He hadn't planned on returning to Cybertron so soon. Sunstreaker had forgotten about Roulette. He had forgotten how she would pounce on him when he was at his weakest. It was like she knew exactly when to strike. When his frustrations were ricocheting off the walls, she would come to him and dig her fingers into his seams and set his sensors on fire. Then she would drag him off to her berth and let him vent those frustrations upon her until neither one had the strength to disentangle themselves from the other.

Sunstreaker mentally shook all the night's memories from his processor, despising himself anew. Why did femmes make him so weak? Why did they have to swarm this city while he was still riding out his own personal storms?

"Well, well, well. Look who's doing the walk of shame today."  
Sunstreaker froze at the feminine voice laced with humor. Two femmes were sitting on a couch, the orange one looking right at him with a smirk.

"Don't worry, Sunstreaker, you're certainly not the first mech I've seen sneaking out of femme exclusive quarters," Firestar grinned. "And you most definitely won't be the last."

Sunstreaker scowled at her before his optics flickered to the other femme. Bayonette, Roulette's older sister. She was sitting next to Firestar, reading a data pad. Her optics flicked up at him once before returning to her reading as if Sunstreaker's presence held no interest to her at all.

He had known both sisters for roughly the same amount of time. Throughout his off and on relationship with Roulette, Bayonette never looked at him differently whether her youngster sister loved him or hated him. Her face was always the same, neither hate nor affection. Always the same indifference as if she were looking at a light fixture and not a living bot.

Sunstreaker would be lying if he said he never wondered about her, and why it seemed to be that Roulette had taken all the personality between the two. Not to mention all the crazy.

"Not that it's any of your business," Sunstreaker hissed at Firestar, irritated at being caught during his time of self-loathing.

Firestar shrugged, unoffended. "It's not. I just like seeing the guilt on their faces when they get caught. It adds an extra spark to my morning."

Sunstreaker snarled something rude to her and stormed off.

"And tell your brother to come by more often," Firestar called after him. "He has the cutest caboose."

Long after, the orange femme still had a wide grin on her face. Mechs were so much fun.

Bayonette said nothing and continued to read her files.

* * *

Her systems came online in a not-so-welcome manner. She was laying on her back and her fuel tanks immediately lurched. Blitzangel rolled to her side to find she was on a table, the floor far below. A hand on her shoulder steadied her while she was handed a bucket.

"Here, use this," a soft voice said.

Blitzangel didn't even have time to find out who it was before what little remained of her tank contents were purged. A few dry heaves wracked her body before the tremors ceased and she rolled onto her back, arm draped over her optic band.

"Ugh, I feel like shit."

"You're on Cybertron now," came Ratchet's voice from somewhere off to the side. "Say it in Cybertronian."

"I don't know how to say shit in Cybertronian," she moaned, still favoring darkness over the searing lights above her. She checked her internal chronometer. She had been out over twenty-four hours. That roughly put her into the next Cybertronian day. "What happened?"

"You threw up on Ultra Magnus before passing out."

Blitzangel internally groaned at that. Why did she always make such a fool of herself in front of that mech?

"And regretfully, I had to leave you unconscious while the medical staff tended to the brunt of yesterday's injuries."

"That doesn't explain why I feel so awful."

Ratchet sighed and wheeled his chair from his desk over to her. "That's my fault, actually. You had a bad reaction to one of the boosters I gave you, maybe a couple of them. I wasn't thinking about your alternate programming. I didn't even consider the possibility it could affect you negatively."

Blitzangel rolled over to her side again, her back to the CMO. She was harboring the idea of getting off the table if she could. "So it's like when a vaccine can get you sick because part of the virus is in the cure."

"Something like that."

Her systems roiled for a second and a light hand touched her shoulder. "Feeling like you're going to purge again?"

Blitzangel looked up at the bot who had been holding her puke bucket and her vision filled with pink. Oh no. Elita One was crouched next to her, causing Blitzangel to wonder if the universe had built her exclusively to make a fool of herself in front of the bots she wanted to impress the most. Somebody had to be laughing at her now. She wasn't sure who: Primus, God ... but definitely somebody.

With all the effort she could muster, Blitzangel fought with her body to sit up. She hissed heated air from her vents as she coaxed her systems to steady. Ratchet plugged something into the back of her neck without any notice. Blitzangel was used to it. On Earth, he was monitoring her all the time. The plug didn't hurt, but she was aware of its presence.

"I'm going to delete what I can of the boosters," he offered without her asking. Blitzangel could hear typing on a keyboard. "Perceptor should be up shortly to help you out. We'll get you feeling normal as soon as we can."

The purple femme nodded carefully, afraid that the next bought of nausea could come at any time. Her gaze turned to Elita One who was sitting patiently in a chair next to her. "Can I... help you or... is there something you need from me?" Blitzangel couldn't fathom why the Autobot femme leader would be sitting next to her like this.

"Actually, I'm here to help you." Elita One put the bucket of purge down when it looked like the purple femme would be okay.

It seemed a crime to have the femme leader even in the vicinity. She was meant for something so much better than this place. Blitzangel was no accurate judge of Cybertronian beauty, but to her, Elita One was exquisite. She had long legs and a sleek design. Her face seemed to be sculpted by a master craftsman, with a dainty nose, perfectly shaped mouth and sharp, intelligent optics. Blitzangel felt very disgusting in Elita's presence, covered in dried energon and her own vomit.

"Optimus told me about you, about all that's happened to you." Elita propped her elbow up on the back of the chair in a more masculine pose. "I'm taking it upon myself to personally help you transition into our society."

She sounded like Blitzangel should be thankful, but the purple femme only frowned. "I've killed Autobots. I put your femmes in danger. I'm the reason so many of your numbers are gone. It may have not been completely my fault, but I will be blamed for it. The incident in the emergency bay was not a fluke. I'm sure it will happen again."

"So what are you saying? You're afraid of a challenge?" Elita countered with a raised optic ridge.

Blitzangel said nothing.

"You are a femme of unknown origin. Probably either Autobot or neutral. You were captured by the Decepticons, rebuilt and reprogrammed against your will. The Autobots rescued you and restored you to your root personality, but the memory of your past self was all wiped. That is your story. That is what we are telling everyone; that is what you will tell everyone." It wasn't a request, it was an order.

"It will take a while for bots to get used to you, to trust you. You will have to prove yourself to many of them. But you will have bots who have your back, I know you know this."

Blitzangel let out more air, quietly this time. "Okay."

As if summoned by that statement, Jazz poked his head into the med bay. "Oh hey Angel, looks like Ratch has got you functioning again."

She just smiled and shrugged at him, keeping most of her messed front aimed away from his sight, wishing he wouldn't see her so putrid and pathetic.

"Listen uh... any of you guys see Drift stop by?"

"Why? What happened to him?" Blitzangel then demanded, forgetting anything else.

"No, no," Jazz insisted, trying to calm her. "I'm sure nothing happened to him. It's just that I haven't been able to find him and if he wants to stay with the Autobots he's gotta report for drills and all that. We never had a chance to give him a proper schedule."

Inside, Jazz was not a happy bot. The truth of the matter was that no one had seen Drift since the battle the previous day. All Jazz could think about was the conversation he saw the neutral have with Optimus and his mention of their being even. Had Drift already hit the road so quickly? That piece of scrap hadn't kept his promise and Jazz wasn't looking forward to seeing his friend get hurt over it.

"I'm sure he's around here somewhere," Jazz continued lightly. "I'll just keep looking for him."

As he turned to go, he ran directly into the white chest of a taller mech. Drift.

"There you are," Jazz barked, angry and relieved at the same time.

"It's me," Drift intoned.

"I've been looking for you for the past several hours. You don't answer your radio."

Drift stared blankly at the shorter SIC and then inspected the communicator on his arm. "Yeah, I got a loose wire. Had it for a while. I didn't even notice. I'm not used to anybody actually radioing me." He opened the panel right there and tightened said wire.

Jazz put his hands on his hips, unknowingly looking very much like Prowl at the moment.

"Where have you been all this time? I kept going back to your quarters and you were never there."

Drift made a sound of dissatisfaction at the thought of staying too long in his quarters. "You just expect me to sit in my little closet like a tool until you have use for me?"

Jazz's hands went from his hips to cross over his chest. He gave Drift a meaningful look in hopes of reminding him of their previous conversation.

"Look, I was just wandering around the city, okay?" Drift defended himself. "I was promised a tour and I never got one. So I just checked the place out myself. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

Jazz frowned at him quietly and then decided it wasn't worth arguing about. The fact that the mech was still in the city and doing what he was told after he was found would have to be good enough for now.

"Let's go," he said, grabbing Drift's arm in a strong grip. "It's time for drills."

"Drills?" Drift protested as if it were the most base thing he had ever heard of.

"Now," Jazz ordered in a tone that would have done his fellow SIC proud as he marched them both out of sight.

Meanwhile, Blitzangel was glad they were there to distract each other. She felt like she didn't have the energy to handle either one, let alone both at the same time.

"How's that?" Ratchet asked as he finished typing.

"Ugh, much better," the femme confirmed. "At least the nausea's gone."

"Good." Just as Ratchet pulled the wire from the base of her neck, two other science bots walked in.

Wheeljack and Perceptor were involved in a deep and somewhat loud conversation involving terms that were quite a bit above Blitzangel's head. That smarter extra part of her consciousness seemed to be taking a nap at the moment. She took that moment to slide off the table and move to the small shower that was regulation for every med bay. It was just a tiny one body basin with a shower head located directly above a drain, mostly used for medics to clean up after messy repair jobs.

The solvent used in the med bays was a bit thicker than regular showers. It cut right through the grime as Blitzangel scrubbed the dried gunk off her chest and thighs. Most of it was from that single bot that had bled out all over her as she tried to staunch the bleeding even as the body collapsed on the floor. She gave the joints of her fingers special attention as she cleaned them and wondered if that damaged mech had made it through. She was afraid to ask, wary of what else would come up in conversation.

Above the running of the solvent, she could hear Ratchet getting into the conversation. From what little she could translate, Blitzangel knew they were talking about her. More specifically, they were discussing her condition and whether it was more practical to modify boosters to fit her systems or to modify her systems to eventually match generic boosters.

Perceptor seemed to be winning the argument. He was a softspoken bot, but he also knew when to hold his ground when he was right. The most complex programming of a bot's neural net was his specialty, so of course he was right. Wheeljack argued with him merely because he was a strong proponent of considering all options and experimenting to find the best one. Even if experimenting on Blitzangel wasn't an option, he at least enjoyed the discussion of the possibilities.

Ratchet was getting his say in on the discussion merely because they were all in his office and he was lord of the domain.

"Blitzangel, if you would be so kind," Perceptor said, cutting the others off as the femme in question approached.

He patted the table and Blitzangel hopped onto it, accustomed to this sort of thing.

"Now, what I have prepared for you is an all-purpose booster which scans for the most common virus strains. However, we collectively," he said that with emphasis as he looked at Wheeljack, "believe it would be in your best interest to agree to a series of small programming sessions to alter your programming to be more in sync with normal Cybertronian systems. For now, you are fine as long as one of the three of us are around, but the future needs to be considered. If you, Primus forbid, were heavily damaged and brought to a medic who had no prior knowledge of your history, it is possible he may do more harm than good."

Blitzangel vented loudly as Perceptor applied the new modified booster. The idea of subjecting herself to that much modification made her feel queasy all over again.

"How many sessions are we talking about?" she asked softly.

"They would be brief," Perceptor insisted. "But there would be several. It would be a timely process over the space of several months."

Blitzangel did her best to mask her distaste for the idea, keeping her expression as neutral as possible as she thought about it. But her posture slumped unconsciously.

"You know, there _is_ an easier way to do it," Wheeljack offered, causing the purple femme to perk up at the notion of alternate treatments.

"In _theory_ it would work," Perceptor clarified. "I admit probability is favorable, but I could not guarantee the outcome 100%."

"I would bet a month's rations it would work," Wheeljack insisted.

"What?" Blitzangel asked with intrigue. "What would work?

For a while, even Ratchet wasn't sure to what they were referring. Then his optics widened as realization struck him. "No! THAT is not an option!"

"What? What isn't an option?" the femme pressed.

"You saw her face, Ratchet. She doesn't want to do it this way. She doesn't want to be a science experiment the rest of her existence. She wants to live a normal life, normal in every way."

"Not in that way," Ratchet hissed with venom. "I forbid it."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Blitzangel barked in English.

"Remember back on Earth when we discussed how unhealthy systems can learn on their own how to get better by being near healthy systems?" Wheeljack asked.

"Yeah."

"Wheeljack..." the medic warned.

He was ignored. "And don't you find it so strange how all of us were built by all sorts of different creators, bots from all sorts of backgrounds, and yet we all have the same types of systems?"

"Okay," Blitzangel said, still following so far.

"It's because we have all been intermingling with each other for millions of years, sharing data. It's one of the reasons we are so social by nature. This, of course, is a gradual process, but-"

"Wheeljack!"

"But there is a way to speed up that process." Wheeljack interlaced his fingers, tightly fitting them together as a visual aid. "A direct physical connection with a system- possibly even more than one- where data and energy are transferred."

"For the love of Primus, Wheeljack! Stop talking!"

"I dare say it will be a far more enjoyable experience than returning to Perceptor's table several times a week."

"I swear I'm going to dismantle you into a street light," Ratchet vowed.

"What?" The inventor defended. "It's a perfectly natural practice. And, may I add, also healthy for the system. You can't argue that, Ratchet."

"Doesn't mean she should be doing it, not right now," the medic shot back.

"I still don't really understand what you're talking about," Blitzangel said.

"To put as plainly as possible," Perceptor offered, "he's suggesting you find an intimate partner to engage in a physical interface of energy to give your systems a large kick-start in the right direction."

Blitzangel carefully picked through that statement. The word partner could have several different connotations. But intimate couldn't really be mistaken for anything different.

"Physical interface. Is that like... sex?"

"Well, yes," Perceptor confirmed. "They're not quite the same thing, but that's the closest English word to it."

"So I've just got to go do it with somebody, huh?" the femme asked dubiously. "Go find any stranger off the street and proposition him?"

"Don't you ever do that," Ratchet cut in with a parental tone. "Interfacing with a total stranger is dangerous for both of you."

Blitzangel's jaw fell open at the insinuation that her questions meant she was seriously considering it. "I am NOT that kind of girl!"

"It's still important to know," Perceptor said. "The systems of two individuals need to be around each other for a while, getting used to their energy signatures before you can do a full interface. Otherwise the body will reject the influx of energy and it will be a very painful experience instead of a pleasurable one."

"And then I'm the one stuck replacing blown fuses and shorted spark plugs," Ratchet grouched.

"Though, of course, there are other ways to pleasure a partner if neither are ready for that step yet," Wheeljack cut in.

"We're getting a little off topic," Ratchet countered. "I don't think she needs to hear all this."

"Whatever, this is the most interesting conversation I've ever had!" the femme grinned back.

"Right," Perceptor agreed with Ratchet. "So getting back to a partner for you-"

"That is not what I meant, Perceptor."

"I have composed a list of possible mates that have already built up a familiarity with your systems and would be the most likely to make the experience comfortable and pleasurable."

"Oh! I made a list, too!" Wheeljack announced. "Let's compare! Who was your first choice?"

"Okay, NOW we are done talking about this!" Blitzangel announced authoritatively, making an X with her arms.

"But-"

"DONE!" she insisted. "I'm going to do the sessions with Perceptor anyway, not the other thing."

"Good choice," Ratchet said as he heavily patted her head.

The other two mechs also let it drop and got back to work.

Elita One continued to sit in the back, stretched out on a small couch. She had been completely in view of the conversation but also completely forgotten. The femme commander prided herself of that. When she stepped into a room she had a presence, heads turned her way. Respect was given to mechs and femmes alike. But she could just as easily sit quietly in the background and observe as though invisible. She could catch glimpses of bots as they truly were when they forgot she was present. Elita could learn so much that way.

The previous conversation had been amusing and educating. Blitzangel knew very little about the physical intimacy of their kind. That was good to know. Elita put that on her mental list of things she would teach the purple femme. She had been ready to jump into the conversation if it seemed Blitzangel was feeling uncomfortable or ganged up upon by the three mechs. But with Ratchet vehemently in favor of Blitzangel staying chaste for the rest of her life, the conversation didn't get too far out of hand.

And when Blitzangel had announced she was done talking about it, all three mechs let it drop. It was obvious each cared about her well-being, respected her wishes, and wanted what was best for her. Elita filed their names away as well. Blitzangel's path was not going to be an easy one. She was going to make enemies ... had already made enemies. Even Elita herself harbored a secret pinch of anger toward the purple femme for what had happened to her sisters. It was going to be a rough road. It would be good idea for the femme commander to remember who was in Blitzangel's corner if the slag hit the fan.

Ratchet was already getting into a full body evaluation of Blitzangel. His last examination several months ago had been interrupted when the startled femme had woken up and made a break for freedom. This was much better, with her awake and able to respond as he looked her over. He inspected her elbow, which was on a ball joint, allowing her a much larger range of motion than a human joint would. It was how she was able to use the awkward angle of her arm blades as well as she did.

"This is pretty heavy," the medical officer said as he assessed the weight of Blitzangel's forearm.

"Yeah, the blades have some weight to them," she confirmed.

"So do your legs from the knee down," Ratchet then noticed her massive feet. "You've got a strange balance, especially for a femme. Light in the middle, heavy in the extremities."

"I make it work to my advantage. In a fight, the counterweight can be quite handy to increase the momentum of a slash or a kick."

Ratchet frowned at the mention of her fighting, but did not comment on it. "Can you show me those blades of yours?"

"Okay. But stay clear. They're spring-loaded, I can't make them come out slowly."

All the mechs gave her a wide berth as she snapped out just her right side blade. Ratchet instantly moved back in to inspect it, testing its stability and sharpness.

"Power it up for me."

The blade glowed electric yellow with energy. Ratchet gingerly touched it with one finger and jumped back as the blade sizzled upon contact, his finger singed.

"That's... pretty impressive," he admitted.

"That's why I like them," Blitzangel grinned.

"Okay, put that away, we're going to check some of your internal systems."

Blitzangel sheathed her blade and lay obediently on the table. She steeled herself, already feeling her processor going back to unpleasant memories of being asked to lay down upon a table, unable to do anything but comply. Ratchet didn't seem to notice her discomfort, but placed a hand on her forehead as if by reflex. That act alone took away her apprehension caused by past experiences. But even that didn't stop her from squirming a little as Ratchet opened her chest and began poking around.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you feeling any pain?"

"No," she said, a bit self-consciously. "It's just... I still think it's weird to have you guys groping my chest and then rooting around in my body cavity. It feels weird. Especially here." She folded her arms modestly over her exposed chest.

"Get used to it," Wheeljack said as he gave her a friendly poke in the cheek. "Even in Iacon we don't have any female medics. All Elita One's medical staff was, well, they're not here any longer."

"We're training others," Elita finally took the initiative to speak up. "I have some femmes who aren't too thrilled about male-only medical officers as well."

All three mechs suddenly looked at her, having completely forgotten she was there. Blitzangel noticed a bit of their gruffness made room for more professionalism under the watchful optic of the femme commander.

"So, what should we do about this?" Ratchet asked in a lower voice, tapping Blitzangel's spark signature generator. "I can remove it if you want."

"I want to keep it."

Ratchet glanced over at Elita, now fully aware he had an audience. He leaned in low, speaking so only she could hear. "I know you are as aware as I am the perverse implications this thing could have. If any of the Decepticons had taken advantage of-"

She cut him off by placing a hand on his mouth. "They did not, as far as I can remember, and if they did I'd rather not have the recollection," she hissed back just as quietly. "But, I've found it useful to me. Also, it makes me seem more normal … or have you forgotten that without this I give out no energy signature at all?"

Ratchet pulled away from her hand. "Prove it to me. Put it on the lowest setting." He glanced at Wheeljack and Perceptor. "You should probably stand back."

"Oh, so you think you have more self-control than we do, huh?" Wheeljack challenged.

Ratchet recalled Prowl and Jazz's reaction when he had set the thing off by accident. What would Blitzangel have had to say if she'd seen their reactions?

"Just stand back, okay?"

They moved back a few steps. Blitzangel closed up her front panels and sat up before turning on her faux spark, setting it to the lowest power. Ratchet frowned as his own systems picked up the feedback from the female body.

"It's about the right intensity of a normal spark but..." He thought about how to word it. "The way that thing is giving off energy is pretty much telling me you're looking for a date."

"Hm, that's not good." She went quiet for a moment as she adjusted it. "How's that?"

Ratchet managed to look impressed. "Yes, that's pretty normal. Keep it like that."

"I think I'll just keep it off unless someone gets suspicious," Blitzangel said. "I kind of like the ambiguity."

Ratchet seemed to have no problem with that and moved to inspect her face. "What about the optic band, how is it working for you?"

"It's fine," the femme replied, slightly hesitant. "I can see. That's the most important thing."

"Have you considered replacing it with normal optics?" Ratchet said, completely in business mode now.

"I... haven't really thought about it."

"Can I remove it?"

"Um, okay," she said quietly.

She was aware Wheeljack had approached again on the other side before Ratchet took her optic band in his fingers. A quick tug, and everything went dark as it was disconnected and removed.

Blitzangel felt a little unbalanced without her sight. She propped herself up on her palms to make herself feel more stable.

"There's still so much char damage," Ratchet mumbled as he shined a light inside the maw of her face. "What happened?"

"I don't remember. I think someone shot me in the face. Again." She made a nervous sound that hardly passed for laughter.

"Do you remember if it happened while you were in this body or the other one?"

"No, I'm not sure."

"I'm not sure either," Ratchet admitted. "If it happened previously it appears your new design was just worked around the damage. Either way, since they were brainwashing you, I'm sure cleaning out the hardware up here wasn't a top priority."

"I guess not." Her response was hardly a whisper.

"I'm going to poke around a bit. Sit still."

Blitzangel tried, but as soon as she felt scraping of a tool inside her head she made a distressed sound and groped one hand blindly in the darkness. Wheeljack caught her hand in his and placed the other on her back to steady her.

"What's the matter, feeling dizzy? Is your balance off?"

"No, I just-"

Ratchet scraped inside her head again and she grabbed his wrist with her free hand.

"Stop. I don't like that. I don't-" She paused as she fought back the urge to sob. Blitzangel quickly covered her face with her hands as she tried to control herself. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm acting like this."

"Hey, it's okay," Wheeljack said, trying to put a friendly arm around her shoulder. "We understand."

Blitzangel immediately swatted him away. "No, no, don't hug me. I'm just being stupid."

"If I groped Ratchet's chest, would you feel better?" Wheeljack offered.

Blitzangel barked out a laugh between her sniffles. She vented air deeply until she had calmed down. For she had not forgotten who was watching either.

Elita One had her doubts, but Optimus Prime had been right. Whatever she saw of this purple Decepticon when she was taken custody by the Autobot femmes, that was not Blitzangel's true personality. She was not a violent killing machine; she was soft, fragile and scared. Just like any number of femmes Elita knew would be, in her position. She knew she could help this femme now.

"You have a visitor," Perceptor said while Blitzangel tried to compose herself.

She looked up, but her vision had still been taken from her. Gentle hands touched her cheeks, sliding the optic band back in place. With a click her sight flickered back on and she saw a different mech standing in front of her. One in stark white and black with flared door wings blocking out the harsh light.

"Oh, hey Prowl." Any sign of distress was immediately gone from her face.

"I am off shift," he said pragmatically. "I wanted to see if you were well. If so, I was going to take you on that tour I promised."

"Yes!" she said in excitement as she jumped off the table, almost landing on Ratchet's foot. "Let's do that! Show me everything." She grabbed the SIC by the arm and practically dragged him out of the room with a "Bye guys!" as she left.

The three mechs remaining watched her go before Elita One came to stand in their midst.

"Not quite the one-on-one time you were expecting?" Ratchet asked her.

"Actually, I found it very educating. Exactly what I was looking for. Thank you for letting me sit in." She nodded to Ratchet and then went on her way.

* * *

Prowl led them to a high-rise, a domed walkway a few levels above the ground that stretched from the main tower to another one. It was at the opposite end from Blitzangel's quarters, giving her a different view of Iacon. Now she could see more of the breadth and width of the city instead of just the border walls and the dilapidated, rusted territory without. Half way across, she pressed her face to the glass, shielding her optic band with her hands to give her a better view.

"Iacon really is just a big millitary base, isn't it?" Blitzangel observed. "Hardly a city at all. All I see are bunkers and storage buildings, training fields, firing ranges. Inside the tower seems more like a real city than outside."

"You expected something different?" Prowl wondered as he gazed at the view next to her.

"Yeah, I expected neon signs, stores, lights, people- er bots. But everything is organized, militarized. It's not like in the pictures Jazz and Hound showed me."

"Cybertron sadly has not had a true city built upon it in quite some time. Cities require civilians and the entirety of the planet's surface has been militarized. There are only soldiers now. Only Autobots and Decepticons... and the war."

"How sad," Blitzangel said softly.

"It is," he agreed.

"And if I wanted to go flying outside the base, what would I have to do?"

"I don't recommend flying anywhere outside Iacon airspace unless you have permission to go somewhere specific. It can be dangerous out there. Merely having wings won't keep you safe."

"I see," Blitzangel said, pulling back. She could now see herself and Prowl's reflection in the glass while he looked down at her.

"I know there are more safety restrictions," Prowl agreed, "but there is still plenty of room for everyone. Come." He continued to lead the way across the lengthy high-rise. "Those buildings on that side," he nodded to rows and rows of identical buildings, "those are all the mech bunkers."

"Wow, that's a lot."

"An entire army's worth," Prowl agreed. "There are even more underground. The femme bunkers are over there." He pointed to the other side where two large buildings stood side by side, much newer than anything around them. They were not small by any exaggeration. A few warehouses worth and more. But compared to the mech's numbers, still so very few.

"That's not very many, is it?" Blitzangel asked softly.

Prowl just shook his head as they arrived at the second tower, much darker and smaller than the main tower, and descended several flights of stairs to the ground level.

They emerged among Autobots galore. Several metallic bodies were moving about: some working, some with places to go, some just enjoying the few moments of free time they had before their shift started. It wasn't quite as busy as inside the main tower, but it was a bit more daunting and claustrophobic with everyone on the same level.

The general population seemed to be composed of mostly mechs with hardly a femme in sight. They were of every size and color. Some were shorter than Blitzangel, but most were bigger. Much bigger. There seemed to be more science bots and officers in the tower. Mostly bots with specific skill sets and responsibilities. Outside was where the soldiers mingled, the heavy hulking mechs that were put on the front lines to thrash the nastiest the Decepticons could offer.

One mech crossed their path was almost as large as Skyfire. But where Skyfire couldn't look scary no matter how large he got, this Autobot looked mean. It was obvious he was built to devastate anything that got in his path from the way he carried himself. He had seen many battles, as they could tell from the damage coating his thick outer armor, and he wore it with pride.

Blitzangel subconsciously gravitated toward the safest thing in her area. Before she knew it, she was wrapped around Prowl's arm, eyeing everything with a sense of awe and slight intimidation. When she grabbed him, Prowl looked at her in surprise. Then down at the tiny hands clutching his arm. His fingers twitched, the doors on his back twitched. He said nothing but pulled her along.

* * *

"Hey look, is that Prowl over there?" Moonracer wondered out loud. "You usually don't see him around here. He's got... yeah, it's that Deceptifemme with him. The one we captured."

Chromia dropped her weapon from the practice target and turned to see what Moonracer was looking at. She immediately scowled at the sight. "You mean the femme who screwed all of us over? What's a high ranking bot like that doing with her, when she's not even in custody?"

"They seem friendly," Moonracer grinned.

Chromia shot the teal femme a dubious glance and then looked again. Prowl definitely wasn't escorting a prisoner. The purple femme was clutching his arm and Prowl seemed strangely comfortable with it. She spoke to him and he leaned in to reply, door panels bent forward as if to shelter her. Prowl was practically doting on the femme. Chromia had never seen Prowl dote on anything in all the years she had known him. Not even on his own precious data pads.

"Aw, it's kinda sweet," Moonracer said.

"Trust me, Racer," Chromia frowned as she nodded toward the purple femme. "There's nothing sweet about that one."

And Chromia would know. She had seen the ugliness of the Deceptifemme in the Xartin arenas, how the one called Blitzangel would tear apart any opponent given to her without mercy or a second glance. Elita had told her that it was discovered that Blitzangel had been reformatted against her will by the Decepticons and could possibly even be one of their own. Chromia couldn't picture that femme as any one of her sisters that had been lost through the ages.

"What are you two gossiping about?" Ironhide barked. "I thought we were having a contest over here."

Well, Chromia and Ironhide were having a marksmanship contest. Moonracer was wiping the floor with both of them. Not that the couple had poor aim by any exaggeration, but Moonracer's accuracy was in a class all by itself.

"Oh great, they're coming this way," Chromia murmured. "Can you believe it, Ironhide? What is Prowl doing with Cybertron trash like that anyway? Please tell me he's at least putting some sort of escort on her while she's in Iacon."

Ironhide made a coughing noise, but wisely didn't say another word.

Chromia overtly went back to aiming at the target in attempt to be far more interested in everything else aside from the approaching bots. Maybe if she ignored them they would continue on their way.

"Ironhide, hi!"

Chromia's optics were wide as she swiveled her head around to see that Deceptifemme smiling and waving at _her_ mech as if she knew him. Blitzangel finally noticed Chromia, too and was suddenly nowhere near Prowl. Blitzangel stood awkwardly, arms crossed at her midsection as if she had never touched him.

"Hey kiddo," Ironhide greeted. "So you finally made it to Cybertron, huh?"

Before she could respond, a minty green femme was in her face. "Hi. I hear that you've been feeling a lot better now that you've had some repairs."

"Um, yes, repairs," Blitzangel responded, a bit dazed. She wasn't prepared to get a femme in her face so fast, friendly or otherwise. Moonracer had wide optics and a bright smile. Blitzangel hoped she would find more femmes just as friendly.

"I'm Moonracer by the way. That's Chromia." She jerked a thumb in the blue femme's direction.

Blitzangel just nodded.

"You want to practice with us?" Moonracer asked. "We were having a contest." She directed all her statements to Blitzangel exclusively. To be honest, Prowl intimidated her a bit. It felt weird to be so casual toward such a high ranking officer so she chose to be friendly toward his escort instead.  
"Uh, no, that's okay," Blitzangel said as she backed up. "I'm not very good at it."

"It's hardly a contest with you anyway, Moonracer," Ironhide grouched.

"Bah, you still like any excuse to shoot your guns. Pew, pew," Moonracer teased back as she pretended to shoot him with her thumb and forefinger.

"Been doing worse than usual today with this bum elbow joint," Ironhide continued as he flexed it. "It's been acting up since yesterday."

Blitzangel timidly moved closer, well aware of Chromia's possessive glare. "Is it like a sticky feeling or gritty?"

"I get this clicking sound and then it catches." Ironhide moved his arm for her.

"Oh that's easy to fix." Blitzangel pulled his arm straight and then punched the heel of her hand into Ironhide's elbow joint.

Ironhide's optics flickered as he felt the joint pop back into his proper place.

"Just get a screwdriver and tighten everything in there and you'll be fine." Blitzangel noticed Chromia watching her and quickly lowered her gaze.

For her part, Chromia was hardly believing what she was looking at. It was like an entirely new femme in the same shell. The Blitzangel she was used to had worn a permanent dead expression on her face. She moved like a killer, like she wanted to kill. This hesitant, soft-spoken spark wrapped in a killer's design was not the same femme. Maybe Elita was right about Blitzangel being one of them, turned against her will by the Decepticons. Still, that didn't mean Chromia had to be best friends with her.

There was a rumbling overhead as a large space shuttle flew into Iacon's airspace. Blitzangel moved back to Prowl's side as he eyed the ship with suspicious optics.

"That isn't an Autobot ship," he said mostly to himself.

He was immediately hailed on his personal frequency as Smokescreen addressed him.

"Hey Prowl, I know you're not on duty right now. But I'm sure you see that big freighter coming through. It hailed on an Autobot frequency and claims to have both neutral and Autobot passengers aboard. We're directing it to one of the outer landing decks to be on the safe side. You're the closest officer in the area. Do you mind going to supervise?"

Prowl looked slightly annoyed, but managed to keep most of it out of his voice. "Yes, I can be there."

"Great, I'm sending backup for you. Smokescreen out."

Prowl frowned down at his radio then looked up at his companion. "I'm afraid I have some business to attend to."

"Yeah, I heard," she said with a glance at the other bots. "Take me with you?"

"Well I suppose there would be no harm in-"

"Great!" Blitzangel moved behind him between his doors and starting pushing him along. The sooner she got herself away from Chromia the more comfortable she would be. "Let's get going."

* * *

In Iacon's main tower at the control center, Smokescreen cut his connection with Prowl and sent a quick message to Optimus Prime that Prowl was going to meet the landing shuttle with a greeting party.

"Hey Smokescreen," Blaster said from his own console, "I'm getting a second transmission from that shuttle. It's addressed to you, man."

"Oh yeah?" The blue and red Autobot leaned over to check out the screen. He did know a few spacer bots from his own random travels. Though at the moment he couldn't fathom who would be asking for him specifically. He narrowed his optics at the message and then they suddenly went wide as he jumped to his feet in alarm.

"Slag! Watch the fort Blaster, I gotta get down there."

"Should I put in an alert?" Blaster called, alarmed himself.

"No, it's not like that, it's just... I just gotta go." Smokescreen called as he ran out of the room.

* * *

Prowl stood point as he watched the ship land with a hiss. A quick glance behind him verified Blitzangel was staying safely at the very rear of the greeting party, out of the way. He had a handful of Autobots at his back, ostensibly armed, but accepting by all appearances. Friendly strangers were always welcome, but it was important to be cautious. One never knew what would come from the depths of space.

The belly of the ship opened up and a wide ramp slid down to the bottom. More often than not, the captain of the vessel descended first. Small feet came into view and then long, feminine legs. The captain was a femme; that was surprising. Her full form was revealed, supple and tall in green and purple. Prowl lost feeling in his limbs. That femme was hauntingly familiar. He must have a glitch somewhere. He couldn't be seeing what he thought it was seeing. It couldn't be her. She was dead. Smokescreen told him she was dead.

Her intelligent oval optics gazed over the group of Autobots before settling on the black and white bot in the front. Her optics lit up in recognition.

"Prowl? Oh mah stars, is that you?" she asked in a southern accent.

Prowl continued to stare at her. Optics wide, body frozen, processor crashing at the improbability.

"Prowl, it is you! It's me, Nightshade," the femme grinned. "Come here, give me a hug!"

She wrapped her arms around the stiff body and kissed the side of his helm. "It's been so long, how are you?"

When he didn't respond, she pulled away to look him in the face. "Prowl? Hello?" She snapped her fingers in front of his nose, but it was as if the mech had become a statue. "Prowl?"

The other Autobots relaxed when it seemed the passengers on this ship were not hostile. But one frantic bot pushed his way through them.

"Move, move. I gotta get through," Smokescreen barked as he shoved past taller bodies.

He broke through the pack only to find out the damage had been done. There they were. His femme back from the dead. His little brother fritzing out. And Smokescreen felt all his machinations come undone.

"Aw, crap."


	21. Chapter 21: Layer By Layer

Rising Generations

Chapter 21: Layer Upon Layer

Elita One frowned at the puddle growing slowly bigger on the floor. The technical team down at the main power reactor of Iacon had reported a small leak in the coolant pipes. Elita had been on duty and volunteered to go down and see to it personally. The main reactor was important to Iacon and she felt qualified to go. All her femmes had at least some background in repair, having lived in a self-sustaining community for centuries.

Several engineers were already on the scene when she got there, inspecting the power core and everything around it. So far the leak was minimal and they were expecting a fresh shipment of coolant in at any time, so the power source wasn't in immediate danger of overheating. The problem was that they had yet to find the source of the leak. They certainly couldn't add in the fresh coolant until the damage had been repaired.

"Any luck?" Elita asked as Grapple hefted himself up from his knees.

"I think we have isolated the area where the leak is most likely to be. Somewhere in there." He pointed to a deep nest of wires, tubes and pipes. It was a mess. "Unfortunately, I believe it's too far in to be able to reach with large mech hands. Perhaps you have a tinier-framed femme who could to fit her hands in there to get to it?"

Elita took a moment to mentally search through her numbers to see who would be the best.

"May I offer my services?" a female voice asked behind her.

It was a voice Elita thought she would never hear again. She spun around, optics widening at the tiny femme behind her. The unexpected femme was barely as tall as her waist, though far older than her leader.

"Patch!" Elita gasped. "You- you're here!" She grabbed the smaller femme in a tight hug. "How did you get back?"

"No, no, don't fuss," Patch said, slapping her hands away. "I'm just fine. It's a long story, dear. The short version is I hitched a ride on the shuttle that recently landed in Iacon. The rest I'll tell you later."

Elita nodded in recollection. A shuttle of supposed neutrals had landed recently. Word had trickled down to her that there were two femmes on board. She didn't expect either to be from her lost numbers.

"Now," Patch announced in her business voice, "I believe you two were talking about needing a femme with small hands?"

* * *

Jazz looked over the massive assortment of cargo being unloaded from the Atharian trade ship. The Atharians came from a planet called Helos, which was the planet closest to Cybertron with sentient life. Helos was home to two different intelligent species: the Atharians and the Zarpanthians. Much like Cybertron's factions, those two cultures had been at odds with each other since the beginning of time. Sometimes they were in all-out war, other times an uneasy peace.

Both sides traded with the Decepticon and Autobot factions when needed, though lately the Atharians had heavily favored the Autobots, since their esteemed prince was returned to them after a terrorist kidnapping.

Currently, large drums of coolant were being unloaded from the Atharian ship. It was a far higher quality product than what could be produced on Cybertron with its measly resources and the Autobots needed new, clean coolant in a bad way. In return, the Autobots filled the now-empty hull with all the scrap metal it could carry. The Atharian side of Helos did not have very rich mineral deposits and, of course, Cybertron was lousy with metal. It was a profitable trade for all involved.

The Atharians who owned the trade ship were a mated pair. No offspring, but a few hired hands to help move goods. The owner and captain of the ship was standing beside Jazz to supervise the trade.

"Bring those over here," he called to his workers in his own native tongue. Every Cybertronian was fluent, having done business with them for hundreds of years. "We want to get all the scrap metal in the back, then we'll put those crates back in."

There were several more bins next to the two of them, full of trade goods kept safely away from the dirty scrap metal. A smaller sized femme wandered around to look at the different bins, her dark colors rendering her unnoticeable against the gray background.

"Hey! Material!" Blitzangel exclaimed excitedly as she checked out the different fabrics. A bolt of lavender silk caught her optics and she felt its texture with her fingers. The sensors on her fingertips didn't quite give her the information she wanted so she rubbed the material on her cheek. "Ooh, it's so silky."

"Our giant silk worms produce the highest quality silk in the galaxy," the Atharian automatically responded with pride. Then he did a doubletake, really looking past Jazz at the purple bot who spoke.

"You- she- she's female."

Jazz gave him a lopsided grin. "That she is."

"I'm sorry, I hope that didn't sound rude. It's just that I was under the impression there weren't any female Cybertronians on Cybertron. I've met some who believe you never had any to begin with."

"We've still got a few," Jazz confirmed. "Not too many, but a few."

"Let me call my wife over. She's been wanting to meet one. Rescine, dear, come here a moment please."

The male Atharian was shorter and stout compared to his tall, willowy wife who was more the average body type of Atharians. Her silver eyes blinked as her husband pointed out the female Cybertronian. Blitzangel waved.

"Oh my, isn't she adorable?" Rescine cooed. "Come here, darling. What's your name, dear?"

"Um, Blitzangel," she said self-consciously, glancing at Jazz to make sure everything was okay.

"You're such a tiny thing, aren't you?" the taller Atharian continued. "So petite."

"Yeah, I guess... there's quite a few femmes taller than I am," she answered with a bit of annoyance in her voice, annoyance at her own lack of height. When she was human, she was much taller compared to the average.

"I'm so glad we made this trip," Rescine continued. "I never would have been able to meet you. Though to be honest, I was also hoping to catch a glimpse of the Autobot who saved our beloved prince. The black and white one with the red crest."

"Oh, Prowl," Blitzangel beamed. "I know him."

"Yes, that's the one," Rescine clapped in glee. "He's something of a celebrity in the Atharian countries now. A real hero."

"Hey, I was on that rescue team, too," Jazz frowned, pointing a thumb at himself. "I was right there in the thick of it when we pulled the kid out."

"Oh, so you know Prowl, too! What is he like? I have to say he left quite an impression on our queen. She's really enamored with him."

Jazz frowned as Blitzangel patted his shoulder.

"You're still my hero," she grinned at him. Then something caught her attention and she moved back to the cart of trade goods. "Hey, ribbon!" She pulled out a streamer of long pink ribbon attached to a baton. "I had one of these when I was a kid- er, newly sparked. My creator and I would play with them all the time."

She waved the ribbon through the air, making random shapes with it.

"You know," Rescine's husband said to Jazz, "even during the most ancient times of our planet's history we have always been able to see Cybertron in our sky. Our ancestors had no idea what it was. Too small to be a moon, too close to be a proper star. We called it Luminarus. The Star of Light. They thought it was the very throne of the Goddess Atha, watching over her children.

"Several centuries ago, our society's technology advanced enough to allow space travel. The first place we went was Luminarus, our shining star. The first space explorers touched down on Cybertron and found not the paradise of gods, but a completely dead world in every sense of the word. Can you imagine the horror when they first saw your planet? Full of metal, dilapidated, war-torn. All bodies completely lifeless, whether killed in your war or not. It was the stuff of nightmares and they fled. Not a single Atharian would touch it again for a long time."

Jazz nodded. He had not been not present on Cybertron when the entire planet went dead, all inhabitants included. It occurred about a hundred years or so after the Ark and the Nemesis chased each other into the void of space and landed on Earth for a four million year sleep. So too did Cybertron sleep, all bots on the planet suddenly falling dead where they stood, the planet completely dormant and devoid of a single spark of energy.

"We renamed Luminarus after that," the Atharian trader went on. "We knew it as the Unlucky Star. The Planet of Death. Parents would scare their children into behaving with threats of being taken there." He chuckled. "Your planet was a mystery to the universe. So many different explorers came to Cybertron to study it, to try to figure out what had happened there. No one had a clue. No one would have guessed that all the robots that littered the surface were its true lifeforms.

"But then, of course, about 500 years ago, it was like someone flipped the on switch. The Cybertronians just got up and started moving around again. It was a downright shock to the rest of the universe. Were you activated by an unseen master? How could robots really be alive on their own? Why were they fighting this war? The entire cosmos has been trying to figure out your existence ever since.

"You should hear all the questions I get as a resident of Helos, the closest planet to Cybertron."

"I hope you tell them good things about us," Jazz said. "At least of us Autobots."

The Atharian clapped him on the shoulder. "Of course, my friend. The Atharians and the Autobots are now brothers. We were trade partners before, but since you helped our beloved royal family we are in your debt."

"These are so much fun!" Blitzangel exclaimed in the distance. She was twirling around with her ribbon baton, the material flowing gracefully around her. Jazz couldn't recall ever seeing her that relaxed and happy. She was very cute like that.

Atharian cleared his throat, breaking Jazz of his stupid grin.

"Uh yeah," Jazz pretended to be professional again. "It looks like the last of the cargo is loaded. And I'll take one of those ribbons. How much are they?"

The Atharian smiled at his wife and then gave Jazz a knowing look. "She can keep it. A gift from my family."

Blitzangel was ecstatic at the gift. Material was a sign of wealth and prestige during Cybertron's golden age and absolutely unattainable during the war. Cybertron didn't have clothes, or capes or blankets. Blitzangel just wanted to touch the textiles now and then. That's all she hoped for.

After waving the traders on their way, Blitzangel turned to Jazz as the Atharian ship took off.

"So how do you think Prowl's doing? You think he's okay?"

Jazz frowned for a mere millisecond at Prowl continuing to get more consideration than he. Then he shrugged it off. "You know Prowl, he doesn't like surprises. And this one was a whopper."

"Do you know about this femme? This Nightshade?" Blitzangel then asked.

Another shrug from Jazz. "Not much more than you. He's never mentioned her to me before. Near as I can tell she was Smokey's femme, but he kind of carried a spark for her anyway. Then she died. Or at least Prowl thought she did for some reason."

The purple femme stayed quiet.

"But he'll probably bounce back," Jazz continued. "You know Prowl, he can't stay down for long. He's got a schedule to keep. As soon as he gets all the facts, he'll be back to his normal functions again."

"Yeah probably. And thanks for letting me hang out with you, Jazz. The only reason I even left the tower was because I was with Prowl. When he fritzed, they just carted off his statue-still body and I wasn't going to follow. Not after what happened in the emergency bay... if you heard about that."

"Yeah, I heard." Jazz placed a hand on her head, rubbing one of the fox ear protrusions on her helm. He knew something like that was going to happen sooner or later. They all knew. Decepticons had defected to the Autobots before, but their lives were not easy. Not for a long time, sometimes not ever. Drift was extremely lucky that no one knew he used to be Decepticon.

The Decepticon Blitzangel was a new threat. It wasn't that long ago she had ripped through the Autobot numbers, killing many, crippling others. She would have had an easier time if she had accepted the new body Ratchet and Wheeljack had built for her on Earth. But Jazz understood that sometimes you just had to do things the hard way. Even though he wished he could protect her from it all, he knew it would be better for her to face it. And he would be behind her every step of the way.

"I need to find something to do," Blitzangel said. "Something that keeps me away from everyone else, but where I can still be useful, you know?"

Jazz inclined his head for her to follow him. "Yeah, we'll figure something out. Give it a few days. You just got here, ya know?"

She vented air. "Yeah, I know."

They walked across a high rise about three levels up from the ground. It was just a bare catwalk with a metal floor and a guardrail. A group of four femmes was gathered ahead, peering at the bots below and tittering amongst themselves. Blitzangel only caught a few words of their conversation as she and Jazz passed them, but it was obvious the object of their chatter was a specific male specimen located below.

Blitzangel paused to see if she could figure out which bot had caught their optics. Most bots seemed to be on the move. A few were milling about, but one in particular was quick to catch her attention. A white mech was practicing with his twin broadswords.

Drift lurched around as if battling an invisible foe. He dodged this way and that, swiping his blades through the air. He spun and attacked a practice pole, his blades causing sparks every time they scratched the metal. His movements were graceful and engaging and the femmebots swooned as they watched him.

"He is just so... delicious," one of the femmes said in a sultry voice.

"Wrap that thing up and put it in my room," another laughed.

Blitzangel glanced at Jazz. "You think he's really that good looking?"

"I don't know," Jazz said with a slight hint of jealousy in his voice. "I only look at the femmes. My tastes don't really swing in the mech direction."

Drift paused in his exercises and glanced up at the catwalk. The femmes immediately squealed when he looked their way and pointed up in their direction. Their elation was short-lived when they realized he was actually pointing to the dark purple femme off to the side.

Drift beckoned with a black finger for Blitzangel to come down and join him. The femmes all glared at her, not just in disappointment at not being noticed, but with a palpable aversion when they recognized who she was. They immediately left the vicinity to get away from her.

"Is it okay if I go down and talk to Drift?" Blitzangel asked Jazz. "Or do you think I should go back inside?"

"It's up to you, Angel. I got other things to do, but you can always ping me if you need something."

"Okay, maybe I'll see what Drift wants and then go swing by the med bay to check on Prowl if no one's around. I should be okay."

"Offer still stands, babe," Jazz gave her a flirty grin. "Call me any time."

She waved him off and then hurried down the stairs to meet her friend. Drift had his blades put away and was waiting patiently as she came up to him.

"You were sure giving that group of femmes a show up there," she said playfully.

"Was I?" Drift played back, obviously aware of his audience.

"You're awful sometimes. But have you been doing okay despite being every femme's fantasy?"

He stretched his neck cables. "Not bad. The Autobots sure like to keep me busy with drills and everything else." He grinned. "I guess they're trying to keep me out of trouble."

Blitzangel grinned back. "Because you weren't really thinking of getting into any trouble, were you?"

Drift winked at her and jerked his head as a gesture to follow. "Come on and I'll show you."

He took her hand and the two disappeared into the shadows.

* * *

Prowl's processor was jerked into the functioning world like a jolt of electricity. For an indeterminate amount of time, it felt like all the information in his brain was like a large ocean trying to flow down a tiny river all at once. Everything was gummed up, plugged. It took a while for him to clean up all the mental blockage so the information could flow smoothly again.

Prowl's optics flickered at the ceiling before First Aid's featureless face moved into his view.

"Ah, you're back in working order again."

Prowl watched him with a small frown, calculating the probabilities of where he was and what had happened. "Where's Ratchet?" was the only greeting he offered.

"I did inform him of your condition," First Aid said politely. "He told me only to bother him when it was something important."

Prowl's frown etched itself a little deeper. "Why is my head in a vice?"

"Your neck cables were suffering from spasms. I didn't want you to damage yourself. Now that you are back to normal I can remove it."

Once freed, Prowl slowly sat up, checking his systems for any internal or external damage. It had been a very long time since he had fritzed out that badly.

"Hi, hey Prowl," came a low, hesitant voice that caught his attention. Smokescreen's blue, cautious form carefully came in the room. "How ya feeling, huh? How's my favorite little brother?"

"I am your only brother," Prowl replied stoically.

"Yes, so obviously my favorite." Smokescreen attempted humor as he carefully sat down in a chair next to Prowl's bed. "How are you doing? Everything okay? Because if you have anything you want to talk about, now-"

Smokescreen suddenly had a hand around his neck. He was pulled to his feet as Prowl slid to his.

"You owe me an explanation," Prowl growled in an icy tone.

"Maybe a little," Smokescreen rasped as he clawed at Prowl's immovable hold. "But I can't do it too well when you're choking me."

Prowl relinquished his hold, pushing him back into a nearby chair. Smokescreen was a bit irritated at the treatment himself even if he knew he deserved it.

"Why are you always so violent toward me?" he complained as he rubbed his neck.  
"Tell me what's going on," Prowl insisted, ignoring the question. "Why is Nightshade still alive?"

"You're telling me you're not happy she's still alive?"

Prowl paused as the question resonated with him and he took a moment to assess himself. He was so happy she was alive. Nightshade was whole and safe and exactly how he remembered her to be. To see her again, to hear her voice, feel her arms around him, it was like a dream. It lifted his war-weary spark. It made him feel unburdened and hopeful. Everything seemed better knowing that her death had been a false rumor. A rumor started by...

Prowl narrowed his optics at his brother. "Why did you tell me she had been killed?"

Smokescreen folded his arms over his chest. "I have my reasons."

That remark flared Prowl's temper and it took some willpower to keep it in check. "That's all you're going to give me? After everything you put me through? After all the- the pain and depression? The battle computer? Do you know what it's done to me? What YOU have done to me? Over a lie? You owe it to me to explain yourself."

Smokescreen sighed and stood, putting a hand on Prowl's shoulder. The black and white mech didn't look pleased with the contact but let it stay.

"Look kiddo, I know you don't like me much, but I'm still your brother and I love you. What I did I did for her safety as well as yours and you're just going to have to trust me on that because that's all the information I have for you."

"That is not an acceptable answer," Prowl frowned.

"Well it's going to have to be because that's all I'm going to tell you. Now wipe that scowl off your face. I'm going to bring in a visitor who has been waiting to see you."

Before Prowl could protest, Smokescreen was out the door. A few moments later Prowl could hear the sound of a female voice and his spark picked up.

"Now go easy on him," Prowl heard Smokescreen from down the hall. "Don't break him again, okay?"

"Stop," Nightshade told him. "He's a big mech, he doesn't need you to hover over him all the time."

The two rounded the corner and Nightshade's face lit up as she saw the waiting mech.

"Prowl, hi! How are you feeling?" The green femme still restrained herself, not draping herself over Prowl when she saw him again. Instead, she put a hand on his shoulder. "I am so sorry about earlier. I had no idea that Smokescreen told you I had been killed. You must forgive him his secrets. The war was closing in and I had been so scared. He did it to get me safely off the planet."

Prowl glanced at his brother. The way Smokescreen was looking at Nightshade, Prowl had no doubt his brother cared about this femme just as he did. Smokescreen would have done anything to keep her safe and he couldn't fault his brother for that.

Returning his gaze to Nightshade, Prowl couldn't help but marvel at the miracle she was. This sweet, delicate, beautiful femme was in his life again. Everything felt so much brighter now that she was back with him. He couldn't help but gently touch the side of her face.

"I'm just happy that you're safe," he whispered.

Smokescreen silently rolled his optics.

"And you," Nightshade said with a grin. "You've sure done well for yourself since the last time I saw you. Second in command of the Autobot army! Under Optimus Prime! That's amazing!"

Prowl glanced away, self-conscious. "I was just doing my job."

"And so modest!" Nightshade made a cute noise as she grabbed his arm. "Come on, show me around. Just you and me. We'll leave Smokescreen behind. I'm sure he has more important things to do than hover all the time."

Prowl looked extremely pleased with that idea.

Smokescreen huffed silently. Here we go again, he thought.

* * *

Blitzangel blindly followed Drift as he steered her toward the back walls of Iacon. It was an older part of the military city, unused storage buildings, no bright lights, minimal security. In one of the old, unused buildings was a hole in the floor. Drift jumped through it, taking them down below the surface, deep down to a network of rusty tunnels.

"We've gone past the city limits by now," Blitzangel whispered, as if someone would hear. "We're outside."

"I thought you weren't too keen on being boxed in," Drift countered. "Little trick I learned from my Decepticon days. Go deep enough and you can always find a way in or out of a city."

"Won't we get in trouble for leaving?" the femme continued to worry.

"Well, yeah, if you go telling everyone where we've been."

Blitzangel snapped her mouth shut.

"Relax," Drift continued. "We're not going anywhere that the Autobots would string us up for. Trust me."

He lead them through the maze of darkness until they came upon an equally old and dusty glass tube. It was large enough to fit an average sized body.

"Get in and lay down," Drift said as he opened the heavy seal.

"Why? What does it do?" Blitzangel asked, eying it suspiciously.

"It's a transportation system. Very old school but very fast. They stopped making them when the war started. It was too easy to break them."

"Will it break on me?"

"Nah, it's totally safe. I tried it myself already."

Blitzangel got in, even wondering herself why she wasn't more apprehensive about it. "Alright."

"Keep your arms to your side and wait until you come to a complete stop," Drift said as if he were a ride operator at a theme park.

"Don't make me sorry I trusted you," Blitzangel retorted as the tub was closed behind her.  
As soon as the tube was sealed the red light above her head turned green and she was whisked away. Drift wasn't kidding, it was fast. Definitely faster than he could have traveled by tire.

The expressway tube continued to run deep under the planet's surface. Though the structure was transparent, there was nothing to see. Everything was pitch black in the dead part of the planet. Blitzangel gasped when the tube looped suddenly. It was impossible to see where she was going.

After about fifteen minutes of travel, Blitzangel felt her body slow and she came to a stop at a station similar to the one she entered. A few minutes after she climbed out, Drift's body arrived to join her.

"How far out are we?" Blitzangel asked.

"Far enough that you wouldn't be able to see Iacon if we were on the surface. It's easier to go through the planet then around it when traveling." He jerked his head. "Come on, it's just a bit further."

"Is this where you were all day when Jazz was looking for you?" Blitzangel asked while she followed.

"Yeah, took me a couple of odd detours to set the expressway up to get us to the spot I wanted. Now we've got a one-way ticket from here to there any time we need it."

"And why do we need it?"

Drift smiled, leading them to a tunnel that sloped upward. "You'll see."

A few more minutes of walking and Drift led them to a structure nestled in the darkness. It didn't look anything like the professional towers and military bunkers of Iacon. It wasn't too big. Something with only a few rooms and a clear front door.

"It kind of looks like it could be someone's... house," Blitzangel said as she gazed over it.

"It was," Drift said as he walked up the steps to the open door. Everything was covered in dust save for the fresh prints and scrapes from someone prying the door open within the past 24 hours. "This was Wing's personal dwelling."

Blitzangel paused in the threshold. "Wing's? Why did he live so far down in the darkness like this?"

Drift paused inside a living room area. It had a couch and two chairs, a table, some light fixtures and a few other odds and ends.

"To be fair, when this structure was built, this WAS on the surface of Cybertron. It was a long time ago when Wing built this place. We Cybertronians have always built out and up. Layer upon layer, increasing the size of the planet and burying the past where we don't have to look at it anymore."

Blitzangel stayed quiet, not sure what to say to that. Drift seemed to change a little whenever Wing was mentioned, as if something were bothering him.

He continued to lead the way through the dark dwelling. Blitzangel assumed there wasn't any power in the building as Drift never attempted to turn on any lights. It was pitch black down there. If she didn't have night vision Blitzangel wouldn't have been able to see her own hand in front of her face. Even then, she ran into Drift's back as she followed since his white paint showed up as black in night vision.

"Careful," he responded with a hint of a smile, though he seemed to like her that close to him. "There's some stairs coming up."

They moved out a back door into some sort of garage. Hanger was the more appropriate word; the place was huge. It was big enough to house a space shuttle. And house one it did.

"Oh wow," Blitzangel said as she took it all in.

"Like it?" Drift said with a larger grin. "It's very outdated. A slow, luxury model. The kind you would take on vacation. I figure we can fix the old bucket up and get it ready for space travel. I'll find the right space port and trade her in for something more suitable." He looked down at the femme standing next to him. "I know you're planning to stay at Iacon for a while, but there is always a seat open for you."

"Maybe some day I'll take you up on that. But I want to try living at Iacon at least for a while and see how it goes. I should learn to get used to living on this planet." She gave him a hopeful smile. "And that will give you a reason to come back and visit often."

Drift's expression said he wasn't to thrilled at the idea of being a regular visitor to Cybertron once he left.

"Well," Blitzangel then announced, "let's take a look at this thing and see what it needs. If we can get some power to the lights in this room, that would be helpful, too."

"Agreed."

Once inside the shuttle, Blitzangel saw that it was definitely a luxury model. No weapon systems, no shield, posh seats. Cargo hold was small, meant for luggage and little else. The shuttle was undamaged, but hadn't been used for millions of years. Both bots were surprised when it turned on enough to light the cabin and make the navigation screens flicker, but the engine and thrusters remained dead.

"It's going to need some work," Blitzangel said after she looked over the engine. "Luckily, no really big parts. Just a lot of wiring and such. Probably a new battery to be on the safe side. The parts will be easy to transport here, but acquiring the parts... I don't know what to do for that. I'm not going to steal any from the Autobots and you and I are flat broke."

Drift frowned as he recalled his old shuttle still floating around in space. Somebody was going to happen upon that some day and find all the profits he had hidden aboard. It was a depressing thought to start all over from square one.

"Don't worry about parts, there are layers and layers of abandoned places just like this. I'm sure we can salvage everything we need if we look hard enough."

Blitzangel couldn't help but grin. This sounded like it would be fun. She was really going to get a hands-on history lesson by Cybertron itself. It also gave her something to keep her busy and safely away from the bots who didn't like an ex-Decepticon in their midst.

Her personal radio chirped at her and Blitzangel answered it without thinking.

"Hey Angel," Sideswipe's friendly voice sang over the connection, "just checking on how you're doing. I couldn't find anyone who's seen you lately. Everything okay?"

"You still have your radio on?" Drift hissed. "We're outside the city! Anyone will be able to see that we left!"

Blitzangel held up a finger to silence him. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just out nosing around Iacon. Do you need anything?"

"Nah, just checking up. Hey, I heard you got some swanky room up in the tower. You gonna show it to me sometime?"

"Yeah, let me send you some info and then I gotta go. I'm in the middle of talking with someone."

"Say no more. I'll see you later."

Blitzangel sent Sideswipe some data and then cut the line.

"Did you turn it all the way off this time?" Drift said with a judgmental tone.

"Sorry, I didn't even think about it. I doubt Sideswipe is the kind that traces every single call he makes. If it was Prowl, maybe we would have been in trouble."

"Well don't forget again. You and I aren't exactly high on the Autobot VIP list. I don't care who you're friends with."

"I said I was sorry," the femme shot back. "I won't do it again. Geez, you get cranky so fast."

Drift sighed. "I know. I'm sorry, too. This just... it isn't where I thought I would be. I don't belong here, you know? I'm not comfortable in Iacon."

Blitzangel hugged the taller mech around the waist. "I understand. I'm trying to help you. It will be okay."

Drift took the opportunity to put his arms around her, picking her up a little so the tips of her feet barely scraped the floor. Having a femme in his arms was the only thing Cybertron offered that he wanted. The rest he could do without. After he had his fill, he put her down and Blitzangel was smiling at him again.

"Okay, we need to get going soon. Let's make a list of what parts and tools we need and then we'll figure out the next time we can get out here."

They snuck back into Iacon without being noticed and Blitzangel felt excited. There was a long list of bots that might be a bit perturbed if they knew what she was doing, but she couldn't see anything wrong with it. She owed Drift a debt. Certainly they couldn't fault her for helping him out by her own means. Nor was she doing anything dangerous by traveling to a completely abandoned building in territory where neither faction went. She would be just fine.

"Wanna go to the tower with me? Get some energon?" Blitzangel invited. "I have a roommate, but my place is huge."

Drift looked at the main Iacon tower glittering a few blocks down. "I bet it is. No thanks. I'm not really comfortable in the tower. I like being out here. Plus I should probably be around the bunkers. I'm expected to report in soon for some boring guard duty."

"They're having you start at the bottom, huh?" the femme grinned back.

A shrug. "Hey, I'm neutral. They don't let me do too much until I earn my badge." And hopefully I'll be long gone from here before I do, he thought.

Blitzangel felt a bit guilty that she was not subjected to the same treatment, but not so much she was willing to do guard duty, too. "Sorry. Well, call me if you need anything. We'll get together and go back next time you're free."

He gave her a conspiratorial grin. "I'm looking forward to it."

It was after Drift had gone in the opposite direction that Blitzangel noticed how drab and rundown this part of Iacon was. The tall shadow of the back wall combined with the lack of neon lighting from the newer part of the city gave the impression of the dregs nesting in perpetual night.

Blitzangel thought it was neat. She took her sweet time to get back to the tower, feeling safe in the military city. Everyone here was on the same side; what would she possibly have to worry about? Plus, it was good to learn all the different areas. Any knowledge she could glean would make her more efficient, more helpful in the long run.

Every once in a while, she passed an Autobot or two. Each one a bot she had never seen before. There were so many of them. It was never going to be like the Ark again, where she knew everyone and everyone knew her. Already she missed the camaraderie.

"Hey femme," a male voice called out to her.

Blitzangel paused, having a feeling it was directed at her. She turned her head toward the sound and saw two mechs standing down a narrow alley. One was brown with green highlights. The other burnt red with black. Both were mid sized; taller than her, but not by more than a few inches.

"Yeah, you," the red one said. "Come over here."

Blitzangel didn't even think twice about approaching them. Maybe they needed assistance with something. She was always happy to help.

"So, it's the Deceptifemme," the red one continued. "We've been hearing about you. Never thought I'd see you wandering around out here alone."

He was smiling, but his tone made Blitzangel a bit suspicious.

"Can I help you guys with anything?" she asked, keeping her voice light.

The brown one gave her a lecherous grin. "Oh you can certainly help me with something. You look well-equipped for it."

The way he said it couldn't be misinterpreted as anything else.

Blitzangel vented in a sigh. "Let me guess, is it in your pants?"

The two mechs stared at her blankly. Right, she reminded herself, robots didn't wear pants.

"I'm sorry, but I believe you're barking up the wrong tree- I mean..." Ugh, she was really going to have to watch those Earth-based metaphors. "I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't help you."

She turned to go but Red stuck out a thick arm to block her way. "Now did I say you could leave yet?" He said with a smirk.

Blitzangel frowned at the appendage blocking her exit. If this had happened when she was human, warning alarms would have sounded in her head. These days, she had been through too much to turn into a timid little girl. Now it was just an annoyance.

"I don't need your permission," she said, glaring at the arm. "Excuse me."

Red's smile vanished. "You'll leave when and only when I'm finished with you, Decepticon."

Blitzangel turned to face him and pressed her back against the building wall to give herself as much room as possible. She was done with being bullied and intimidated by these massive metal beings. The new body she had, the things she had been taught in the past year made it so she did not have to lay down and take the abuse any longer.

"If you don't let me go, I will hurt you," she said neutrally. There was no threat in her tone, only promise in her words.

Red grinned again, a cruel, excited twist of his mouth. "Oh little femme, you better take your best shot while you still-"

Blitzangel jabbed Red in the neck with the tips of her fingers, quick as a striking snake. Red instantly sputtered and grabbed his throat, his vocal box fritzing.

"Hey!" Brown said as he raised a hand to the smaller femme.

Blitzangel promptly stabbed her fingers into his shoulder joint, twisted, and Brown's offending arm fell lifeless to his side.

"What the slag?"

"Fragging Decepticon," Red managed to choke out. "I'm gonna-"

Blitzangel jabbed him again, this time in the side right below his chest armor. Red felt his left side go numb, but advanced on her again as Brown did as well. Despite the rage of the two damaged mechs as they descended on the smaller femme, the scene had almost a slapstick quality to it. As each one moved in to attack they received a sharp poke in some vital system and stumbled back. The purple femme was keeping both mechs at bay without even using her full strength. It was a bit funny to watch, but one bot in particular fumed at the scene.

"Alright you slag heads," a blue femme barked as she stormed up to them, "you back up right now!"

Blitzangel saw Chromia's angry form and instantly backed up, hands raised.

"Not you," Chromia growled at her, "these two idiots."

"We weren't doing anything wrong," Brown insisted. "She attacked us."

"Plus she's a con," Red insisted. "Who cares what we do to her?"

"I care," the taller femme said, planting herself between Blitzangel and the two mechs. "I saw everything. Now get your pathetic cans out of my sight."

The mechs looked at each other and then moved into Chromia's space with stubborn frowns on their faces. Chromia had a blaster in her hands before either could flicker an optic.

"I would think very carefully about what I was going to do next if I were you," the blue femme said lowly, her weapon in their faces. "You think Optimus Prime or any of his officers are going to side with you for attacking one of us? That is, of course, if I leave anything for them to punish."

The mechs growled at her, making sure she knew they weren't too intimidated. But their better sense told them Chromia was right. No one was going to take their side in this fight; it was best to cut their losses. Chromia stared them down until she was sure they weren't coming back.

In the meantime, Blitzangel tried to slink away herself while the blue femme's attention was averted. She only made it a few steps before becoming blocked by the chest of an orange and yellow femme.

"Hey there sweetie, you alright?" Firestar asked kindly.

The purple femme backed up carefully. "I'm fine."

"Poor dear. Mechs can be so stupid and barbaric sometimes." Firestar suddenly swept the smaller femme up into a hug. "You're okay now. You saw, Chromia, this sweet little spark doesn't have a violent impulse in her system."

Chromia turned to scrutinize the two while Blitzangel hung limp and blank in Firestar's grip. The blue femme wasn't so sure of Firestar's assessment of this femme. She may look harmless at the moment, but Chromia had seen Blitzangel in action. That sort of skill wasn't just going to get washed away with the alien programming. Not that Chromia could judge another about violent impulses. She was the most violent femme she knew. With this war going on, there was nothing wrong with having battle prowess. It was being able to control oneself that concerned Chromia the most. She had seen this femme out of control and it had been brutal. Chromia wasn't so sure she would trust the purple femme to watch her back in battle, even now.

"So what are you doing out here all by yourself?" Firestar asked as she finally pulled away. "This part of Iacon isn't exactly the safest place to be alone."

"I was just looking around," Blitzangel lied. "I didn't think I would be in danger." She glared in the direction the two mechs had gone. "I thought the Autobots were the good guys."

"Yeah well, while our leader may be good to the core, it's not a prerequisite to join our side," Chromia said jadedly. "Even then, war changes you. It changes all of us. And some let themselves forget that there's still right and wrong in this world."

"Though most Autobots still have good sparks," Firestar insisted. "I know several good mechs in the ranks."

"Of course you do," Chromia accused.

Firestar shot her a glare. "But it's still best to be cautious and not go skulking around in the darker parts of Iacon by yourself," she continued with a smile at Blitzangel.

"Okay," the purple femme confirmed, feeling like a child getting a lecture. "I'm going back to the tower anyway."

"Your quarters are up there for now, right?" Firestar then asked.

"...yes..."

"Did you ask to be stationed up there?"

"Not really, no. They kinda put me up there on purpose. I think to keep an optic on me." They, meaning Prowl, but Blitzangel kept that part to herself.

"Has anyone even shown you the femme bunkers yet?"

"Uh, I know where the buildings are."

"That's not good enough," Firestar announced as she grabbed the smaller femme's hand. "Let's give you a proper tour."

Blitzangel threw a quick glance at Chromia to check her reaction. The blue femme looked a bit put out at the new task, but not necessarily completely repulsed at having Blitzangel around the other femmes. Maybe it would be okay.

She allowed herself to be led to the two massive buildings that were the femme exclusive bunkers. Firestar's hold on her wrist never loosened as she dragged Blitzangel inside.

The femme bunkers were designed differently than the mechs'. Instead of just rows and rows of single rooms, these buildings were built with a sense of community in mind. There was a large multipurpose room in the middle for femmes to mingle. The rooms themselves were set up more like dorms. Four personal rooms were set up in each quarter with a smaller multipurpose room with energon dispenser at the end of each dorm. The femme Autobots were too used to sharing space and seeing each other on a regular basis. The new communal designs had been working well for them so far.

"Not too bad, huh? Kind of nice?" Firestar urged.

"I think they're a little cramped," Chromia grumped. "Since we were building them from scratch, it would have been nice to take advantage of that and plan a bit more space."

"Not that it matters to you," Firestar shot back. "You've got large double quarters with Ironhide. You don't even live here so shush."

"I like them," Blitzangel said softly. "I think they're a good size."

Firestar lit up. "Would you like to transfer down here? I could set it up so we share the same group quarters if you want."

"Firestar, stop trying to adopt her," Chromia snapped back. "Just because you and Ratchet are... whatever it is you are doing together."

"What are you doing together?" Blitzangel asked, her curiosity piqued.

"We're fragging," the orange femme said pragmatically. "Often," she added in Chromia's direction.

"Does that mean what I think it means?" Blitzangel questioned without thinking.

"Of course it does!" Firestar said brightly.

Blitzangel frowned, trying to wrap her processor around that. Chromia was watching her suspiciously.

"So I thought it would be good for us to get to know each other better," Firestar continued with a wide grin. "Do you want to move down here with us?"

Blitzangel thought about it. While she enjoyed her roommate, she didn't want to make that ostentatious room her permanent residence. She wanted to live with the femmes eventually, be a part of them. During the tour, some femmes didn't look to happy to see her, but others seemed neutral about her presence. Blitzangel was eager to prove herself to them, make herself helpful and show them she wanted to be one of them.

On the other hand, moving in would probably put her under their rules. If she lived here, how much more difficult would it be to get out of the city to help Drift? Right now he was her top priority. When she finished helping him, then she would take care of resituating herself.

"I would like to live here eventually, but not today. I want to get used to this place a bit more first and figure out where I fit in. Then I'll move down here."

"You take the time you need, sweetie, I'll be here when you need me." Firestar swept her up in another hug.

Blitzangel hung there limply. While this Firestar was kind and she appreciated the support, someone needed to inform this femme that Blitzangel was not a child to be adopted. She was an adult! Cybertronian culture with their lack of children was so weird sometimes.

Yellow lights began to flash silently on just about every wall and support beam in the building. Immediately, the excitement rose from the femmes in the area. A few skittered away while others began talking excitedly amongst themselves.

"What does that mean?" Blitzangel asked, pnodding to the lights. They had already turned off.

"Just a quick courtesy notice that a male officer is entering the building," Firestar told her.

"Hey Chromia, is Ironhide coming?" a teal and white femme asked hopefully.

"Probably not," Chromia answered with a chorus of disappointed sounds from the femmes in the area.

Poor Ironhide. When Chromia returned to Cybertron, Ironhide explained to her the reason he was suddenly getting so much attention from all the femmes was because he had been forced to be their liaison for several weeks- causing him to be a favorite among the femmes. He seemed almost nervous at getting so much attention, though it just made Chromia laugh at the poor mech. Ironhide never needed much female attention, only from the female that mattered to him the most. Once relieved of the position, Ironhide had solemnly vowed to his mate never to step foot in those buildings again.

The curious chattering instantly died down as the male officer stepped into the multipurpose room. His presence was not familiar and the mere sight of the high ranking officer hushed the gossip and caused a few more females to skitter back to their rooms. The remaining few averted their optics or tried not to stare in curiosity and awe.

Prowl stood silently in the threshold for a moment, door panels flickering as if feeling the weight of the secret glances upon him. He looked around, sharp blue optics falling upon Firestar and he moved toward her. He was flanked by a black and mint green femme, a bit taller than he was. Her optics were flickering around, taking everything in dubiously.

"Firestar," Prowl said as he approached her, "this is Nightshade. She recently arrived on Cybertron and needs to be set up with some new quarters. Nightshade, this is Firestar, Chromia. And this is Blitzangel."

Blitzangel gave a little wave to Nightshade as her name was mentioned. She smiled warmly at Prowl, happy for him that his friend was alive and also that he seemed to be feeling better. Nightshade noticed.

"Hi!" Firestar greeted warmly. "It's so good to finally meet you. We've been hearing all about you. You became a hero among the femmes when you returned Patch to us."

Nightshade shrugged a little. "Don't thank me too much, ya'll. I was just picking up whomever wanted a ride on my way back to Cybertron. Though," she added with a smirk. "I can't say that her "owners" were too happy about her sudden vacation."

"Slag the whole cosmos for all I care," Chromia spat. "The rest of the universe passes us around like their property. If I had the resources, I'd bring them all home. By force if I had to."

Blitzangel was quickly considering sneaking out before the subject turned to why and how Patch had been sold in the first place, along with so many other missing femmes.

"Enough of that," Firestar cut them off. "Let's find you a room so you can rest from your travels. I'm sure you'll love it here. These buildings are brand new. We've got some great communal quarters to share."

"Communal?" Nightshade asked with disguised distaste.

Firestar didn't seem to notice as she chatted happily. "They're very cozy. Let me show you around. It's so great to see a new, pretty face. Everyone's going to love you."

As the green femme was steered away, Prowl found himself feeling like his work was done. With Nighshade tucked safely away in the femme quarters and away from Smokescreen he could rest easier.

A flicker of dark paint caught the corner of his optic and he turned to see Blitzangel slinking toward the exit while she had the opportunity to get away.

"Angel," Prowl called.

She paused as if in pain, hoping this didn't mean her escape was a bust. But it was Prowl. He wasn't going to stay in here. If he pulled her out with him no one else could stop him. Maybe this was a good thing.

"What were you doing in here?"

"Firestar and Chromia kind of caught me and were showing me around. Firestar especially was trying to get me to move in."

"Are you?" Prowl asked neutrally.

Blitzangel glanced behind her at the femmes milling about. "Probably. But not now. I told them when I'm a little bit more used to this place I would think about moving down here."

Only the very shadow of a smile touched his face. That was usually the best one could get from Prowl. "That sounds like a good idea. May I escort you back to the tower?"

Nightshade glanced back from where Firestar was already chatting her audials off. Prowl had already left. He was standing near the exit hallway talking with the shorter purple femme. They both turned to leave and Prowl gently placed his hand on her back to guide her out. Nightshade narrowed her optics at them.

* * *

The next day, or solar cycle as they called it on Cybertron, Blitzangel set out to find Wheeljack to see if there was something she could do to kill some time until Drift was free. The inventor didn't have the same luxuries as on Earth, where he could tinker around with volatile technology when there wasn't a battle. Everyone had to pull their weight at Iacon. Given Wheeljack's particular set of skills, he received work lists of what needed to be maintained or repaired. With how large just the tower was, that list alone kept Wheeljack plenty busy. He was more than happy to share a few tasks with Blitzangel so he could find some extra time for his own projects.

This kept the femme's hands busy for the day while her mind wandered off to Wing's shadowed home, buried beneath the surface of Cybertron. She was eager to go back and take another look, but she would get lost without Drift so she had to wait.

After hours of work, the paint slightly chipped off her fingertips, Blitzangel received a ping that Drift would meet her in the tunnels under the city. Since she was helping Wheeljack with something he had to do anyway, Blitzangel had no qualms with announcing she was done for the day and running off. This time she would be smarter. She wouldn't let anyone see her out in the shadows of the city. No more confrontations, she would be invisible this time.

But before she could even get out of the tower and start melding into the shadows, someone caught her.

"Hi there, Blitzangel is it?" came a female southern drawl.

Blitzangel had been so focused on her task she hardly even noticed the green and black femme ahead of her until Nightshade called her name.

"Oh, Nightshade, hello. How are you?"

The green femme seemed a bit surprised at the polite response. "I'm fine... thank you."

"That's good to hear," Blitzangel waved her off. "I've got to go. See you later."

"Whoa, now hold yer rockets," Nightshade insisted as she stepped in the way. "I'ma trying ta talk to you."

"Oh, I'm sorry. It's just that I have someone waiting on me so I'm in a hurry. Can we talk later?"

"I'd rather do it now, if that's alright." Nightshade gave a broad smile with red lips that didn't seem to be all that friendly. "It won't take long, I promise."

Blitzangel sighed inwardly. She would really rather move along and meet up with Drift. But this was Prowl's friend so she would try to be nice to Nightshade.

"Okay, what can I do for you?" she asked impatiently.

"It's very simple really," Nightshade continued with that insincere smile. "I saw the way you were with Prowl."

Blitzangel couldn't help but smile a bit at the thought of Prowl. He was so sweet and he worked so hard, she loved that mech.

"I want you to stay away from him."

The smile instantly fell. "I'm sorry?"

"He's too good for someone like you. Stay away from him."

Blitzangel regarded her silently as she mulled over the word choices. Though Nightshade was definitely being rude, if she was just trying to look out for Prowl's well-being against an ex-Decepticon, Blitzangel couldn't fault her for that. It was best just to keep going on her way. She turned to go.

Nightshade blocked her path. "Excuse me femme! I'm still talking to ya! I'm serious! You stay away from Prowl. He's mine, alright?"

"I thought you were with Smokescreen," Blitzangel shot back without thought.

Even Nightshade was taken back at that accusation, surprised the purple femme knew that much about her. "Well yes, but... well it's complicated, alright?"

"Complicated as in you think you love Prowl instead? Or complicated like you just like stringing along multiple mechs for your own enjoyment?"

Nightshade didn't answer, but her face said it all. She was that kind. The kind who liked to have multiple males at her beck and call. Maybe just for her own ego, maybe because just one lover was never enough. Either way...

"Eww," came out of Blitzangel's mouth before she could stop it. "So then it's safe to say that between the last time you were on Cybertron and now you've had other lovers without their knowledge."

"Uh, well, it's not like-" Nightshade stumbled.

"Gross," Blitzangel said as she skirted around the green femme. "I'm going to go before I catch something."

Nightshade silently fumed at her back, too angry to come up with a good response.

* * *

Drift and Blitzangel worked quietly in the deadly silent space. This time they had better lighting. Drift had found a small generator that still worked and plugged a few lamps into it. But Blitzangel had to admit, it was still a bit eerie to work down there. Earth always had noises, even if it was just the birds or the breeze. Iacon also had its own constant sounds, even if it was just the hum of the lights. Down here, it was like dead space. Nothing made noise, not even the tiny generator. Just the small scraping of Drift's tools as he worked on the control panel next to her. They were seated in twin piloting chairs, replacing old wires with new ones they had scavenged.

Blitzangel wasn't always one for small talk, but she wanted to fill the silence this time, plus she had something she wanted to talk about.

"So on my way down here to see you, I ran into this femme. The new one that just came to Cybertron in that shuttle the other day."

"She gonna sell it?" Drift asked without looking up. "I'm interested in buying."

"I... I don't know. Plus you don't have any money. But _anyway, _you know what she said to me? She told me to stay away from Prowl, that he was hers. Isn't that weird?"

"Is it?" Drift asked without looking up. "Were they involved at some point?"

"Not that I know of. In fact, what I've gathered is that she's with Smokescreen and she passed up Prowl for him. Only your god Primus would know why. Smokescreen's an asshat."

Drift smirked. He was always amused when she told him a colorful Earth swear or insult. He gave her a brief glance. "Did it bother you to be told to stay away from Prowl?"

"I thought it was more comical than anything. It's so... high school to be all 'Stay away from my man, bitch. I saw him first!' I have never had anyone say that to me. I thought things like that only happened in teen movies."

Drift stopped what he was doing to lean back in his chair and look thoughtful. "If she started a fight, could you beat her?" he asked with a boyish smirk.

"Pfft, of course I could. That skank's got nothing on me."

"Skank?" Drift asked with an interested grin. "What does that word mean?"

"It's someone with loose morals who will sleep around with anything until you can just feel the diseases on them that they've picked up. That was totally this femme. I could just sense all the space strange on her. I hope her next boytoy has a very strong firewall."

Drift was laughing, but Blitzangel paused as a thought hit her. "Drift, is it considered socially acceptable in your culture to live that way? Am I judging her too harshly compared to your standards?"

The white mech's jaw dropped down as if never having considered it before. "Uhh... I guess it depends. First of all, she was rude to you so you can judge her how you want. As for our culture, I guess it's all relative. Whether you have one partner, no partner or even multiple partners is a lifestyle choice and Cybertronians in general are pretty nonchalant about which choice you make in that regard. Though if you had a significant other or others and you cheated on them, that's a universal no-no."

"Wait, others? Them?" Blitzangel balked. "As in more than one partner at a time?"

Drift shrugged. "Yeah, sometimes."

"Depending on what you're into?"

Another shrug. "Sometimes yes, sometimes no."

That wasn't really an answer, but Blitzangel suddenly grinned anyway. "Would you like that, Drift? Two femmes at once? I bet that's your fantasy."

"Ugh, Primus forbid!" Drift instantly groaned. "I had me a femme before the war and believe me, one of her was enough."

Blitzangel rested her elbows on the armrest in interest. "Oh yeah?"

"Her name was Glimmer. Very pretty, _very_ high maintenance. She was constantly on my case." Drift used his hand like a puppet, talking in a bossy, falsetto voice. "Deadlock, why do you have to leave your wax on the floor? Don't go out with your friends, stay home with me. Why don't you ever take me to someplace nice, Deadlock? Don't you want to show off your pretty femme to everyone? Yack, yack, yack." He gave a huge sigh. "She was so needy. Everything was about her. And you know me, I need my space. You should have seen her when I suggested she get herself a job or something to get her out of the house on her own. Slag, her optics lit on fire and her head just started spinning, screaming like she was possessed or something."

Blitzangel had her face on the armrest, laughing so hard she could barely contain herself.

Drift was chuckling, too. "So you can see why I have enjoyed my very long stint of bachelorhood."

"Sounds, sounds like you've earned it," the femme managed to get out between bursts of laughter. She took a few moments to let it die down so she could speak normally again. "Do you mind if I ask again about... group pairings? It's nearly unheard of in Earth culture. I'm curious."

Drift didn't make fun of her for asking; she knew he wouldn't. Instead he took a moment to gather his thoughts. "I'm probably not the best one to explain this, but... let's see... Okay, so your people are organic, like pretty much the rest of the universe. All organic lifeforms, aside from a few bizarre ones, reproduce with one male and one female, right?"

Blitzangel nodded her head.

"So nature has already dictated the natural family group: mother, father offspring. But, see, we don't even have family groups like that here on Cybertron. Back in the day when we had creation technology, new Cybertronians came online full adults and pretty much ready to join the world hot off the assembly line. Plus it only took one creator to build the new creation, not a pair. Sometimes the creator would take the creation under their wing and they'd live in a sort of family group for a while. Other times the creator would cut the ties right there and leave them on their own."

"Aw, that's not cool," Blitzangel complained. "Why would you build someone only to never talk to them again?"

Drift shrugged. "Beats me. My creator wasn't too nurturing, but he kept an optic on me for the first little while just to make sure I could handle myself okay. Then I never saw him again." His optics flickered as realization struck him. "Maybe that's why I got so attached to Wing when he began to mentor me."

He shook himself. "Anyway, so we don't really have natural family groups, but we're still a sociable people. This usually leads to us to finding our own family groups. Back before the war, there were just as many apartment buildings built for multiple tenants at one address as there were for single occupants. Several mechs and femmes would live together in community houses and live like a family.

"Living that close to each other often resulted in romantic pairings. Sometimes a single mech and femme would get together and they would usually move out to get their own place and others would move in. Other times, there would be several mechs and several femmes all living in sort of one big relationship."

Blitzangel took a moment to try to wrap her processor around that type of relationship. "And that was considered normal?"

"More or less. They weren't permanent relationships. It was a way to socialize and for newly sparked bots, a way to safely discover themselves in a caring atmosphere. Mostly, it was for bots to find their bonded."

"Bonded, I've heard that word before, but I'm not really sure what it means," Blitzangel said as she leaned lazily over the armrest of her chair. Practically half of her was dangling off it now. "Is that like being married? Or does it mean... you know... being more intimate?"

Drift couldn't help but smile. Her naivete was refreshing. He couldn't recall the last time he had ever met a femme so new and innocent. Even though she wasn't a femme like the others, she was still a femme in some respects.

"It's a little bit of both, but it's also more. And it's really hard for me to describe since I'm not bonded myself. But it's finding your soulmate- your spark mate. You just know you were meant for each other and you can feel it in here." He touched his chest where his own spark dwelt. "Once you bond with someone you will never bond with another. They are your one and only and it is said that no matter where you go, the other can always find you. Bonding, however, can only take place between one female and one male. No more no less."

"And why is that?"

"Primus, you're killing me with your questions today, Angel."

"You're the only one tells me anything without holding back, I am loving this," the femme grinned.

"Fine," he mock-sighed though he seemed to be enjoying the exchange as well. "As near as I can explain it, bonding is about completing the circuit. You see males and females have different polarities in their sparks. When they come together, they just... fit. Don't ask me why. We're just made that way."

"It's kind of sweet, finding your soulmate," Blitzangel sighed.

"But going back to your first question," Drift continued, now in lecture mode. "The group dynamics of relationships changed when the war began. Especially when Megatron started to target the femmes. At that point, it became common for a femme to be with more than one mech. Usually two mechs to one femme, sometimes even more. It was more for practicality than romance at times. If something happened to one of the mechs, there was another to watch out for the femme."

"Not that we need to be taken care of," Blitzangel insisted.

"Yes ma'am. Of course not."

"But it's nice to have someone around to watch your back, too." She paused as a thought hit her. "How did that go down among the Decepticons? Megatron killing all the femmes? I'm sure even Decepticons fall in love. Didn't that mean anything?"

"Oh yeah," Drift confirmed with wide optics. "It was a mess at first. A war within a war. This was about the time Wing and I tried to get out if the Decepticons. We were done with Megatron's craziness. I thought it would be the one thing that would topple Megs for sure. But that miserable scrap managed to survive it.

"From what I heard, Megatron also made sure it would never be a problem again. He had all his soldiers go through some kind of surgery to have a component removed so they would never care for a femme again."

Blitzangel instantly sat up, offended and appalled. "What? You can't do that! I mean you physically can't do that. There's no way you could just take the ability to love someone out of a body, even a robot body."

Drift knocked on his chest. "There's a component in here that sort of controls physical attraction. I guess he can't stop bots from caring about each other completely, but he sure took the carnal aspect out of the equation."

Blitzangel sat up in her chair, staring out the dusty shuttle window and silently contemplating all she heard. After a few moments of letting it all sink in, she grinned and playfully punched Drift in his arm.

"I love talking to you, I learn so much."

* * *

The two lovers collapsed upon one another, limbs tangled and vents cycling heavily. Nightshade's pale blue optics flickered on as she felt the warmth of the mech body over her.

"Mmm, you always did know how to show a gal a good time," she said playfully.

"I missed you," Smokescreen responded in a far more serious tone as he buried his face in her neck.

She smiled kindly. "Missed you, too." A pause. "Do you think there's any way I could get some better living quarters? It's very cramped in that femme building. I don't belong there."

"You could move in with me," came Smokescreen's muffled voice. "We could apply for joint quarters."

"Are they nice?"

"They're alright. Bigger than this place anyway."

Nightshade looked around Smokescreen's personal quarters, frowning. It was hardly more than a closet with a cot, table and a few shelves. "Prowl could get me some nice quarters, couldn't he? Since he's the second in command of the Autobots. I was so surprised to hear how far he's gone since I saw him last." She hummed sensually to herself. "I bet he has some lovely quarters."

Smokescreen pulled away from her, propping up on his elbow so he could look her in the face. "Hey, go easy on the kid for a while, alright? You've messed him up enough."

"Me?" she asked, voice smooth as silk. "I doubt he'd agree with you."

Smokescreen grumbled in his engine. Nightshade could have blown up an entire city block and Prowl would have found some way to blame Smokescreen for it. The femme could do no wrong in Prowl's optics, and they both knew it. Smokescreen just wished his femme would stop taking so much advantage of his brother's obvious weakness.

"Hey, I'm serious, Shade. Prowl's had a lot to go through lately. He doesn't need you playing with his processor."

"Does it have anything to do with that purple femme I saw? The rumors around here say that she's ex-Decepticon, is that true?"

Smokescreen schooled his expression. The more fuss he made, the more he knew Nightshade would pry. Instead he flopped onto the berth in disinterest. "I dunno anything about it. Just be nice to my little brother, okay? He's the only one I got. I don't need you breaking him again."

The green femme slowly draped herself over his chest and Smokescreen's engine immediately began to rumble at her touch.

"You make me so jealous the way you care about Prowl. I hope you know that."

He smiled at her pout and cupped her chin in one hand. "Baby, you know we've got something that has nothing to do with him. Don't even worry about it."

He pulled her in to kiss her neck and hopefully distract her from the current topic. It worked and soon the femme was pliant and purring beneath him. His hands moved over her, making the femme tremble all over again. But in the back of his processor Smokescreen knew this was only a temporary distraction. In the long run he could never stop her from doing what she wanted. She would do it anyway, no matter what he asked of her. A deep part of him liked her that way.


	22. Chapter 22: Digging Deeper

Notes: I forgot to mention in previous chapters, the Small Problems fanfic series is now five years old! I can't believe I've been working on this series for so long and I haven't dropped it yet. Hopefully I can still keep going until this thing actually sees the end. Keep up the comments everyone, they help me out so very much. I really appreciate all the support that I've had so far. You play an important role in keeping me going. Much love everyone!

Rising Generations

Chapter 22: Digging Deeper

Jazz gazed over the data, his optic band roving over the different spy reports and satellite photos taken of the Decepticon camp stationed just outside the boundaries of Autobot territory. It had been almost four full solar cycles since the Decepticons first attacked the Autobot's far most outpost. They hit hard and fast, decimating the puny Autobot patrol stationed there. Even the first response team that was sent in to remove the wounded was forced back as soon as they recovered their soldiers.

Megatron won that outpost that day. All the top Autobot strategists were still trying to figure out the purpose of the attack in the first place. It was obvious the Decepticons wanted that area badly, but for what reason? There was nothing special about that it. No real resources to pillage. And yet, reports were coming in that the Decepticons were building their own outpost and doing some major construction out there.

The clock was ticking to figure out what they were up to. If the Decepticons got what they were looking for, it could potentially be bad for the Autobot cause. But Optimus Prime was not going to send out an assault team until he knew what he was risking his soldiers for.

Kup and Ultra Magnus had a go at all the information for cycles. Several theories were posted, but nothing that could be proven. They had gone off to take a break and give it up to some fresh optics. Jazz was now pouring over the information, trying to find something that made sense.

He was so engrossed with the task at hand that he didn't notice a pair of hands snaking out from behind him until his chest was suddenly groped.

Jazz squawked as his headlights were grabbed and quickly wriggled away from the offending hands. Behind him Chromia was grinning.

"Getting a little jumpy there, Jazz."

The Jazz frowned at her. The two of them had once been an item. A not so serious item and so long ago it was hardly worth mentioning. But the history was enough that Chromia thought it was okay to continuously sexually harass Jazz whenever she fancied it. Not that Jazz really minded being surprise groped by femmes, just not attached femmes.

"Do you mind? I'm trying to work here."

"I know, I came to help," Chromia said brightly. "I thought I'd give you a little pick me up."

Pushing Jazz's buttons always put her in a good mood. She then noticed they weren't the only two bots in the room. "Hi Optimus."

"A little more professionalism in the war room please," he said with dignity.

"Eh, you thought it was funny, I know." Chromia punched the large red Autobot in the arm and then situated herself at the table where she pleased. "I asked every femme I could think of to make sure I didn't miss anything. They all said the same thing- the same thing I told you yesterday- there's nothing in that area, no matter how far down you dig. No power, no energon deposits. Not even a whole lot of pipes or wires. Just a lot of big tunnels and open spaces. Nothing really worth fighting for."

"There's got to be something worth fighting for, or Megatron wouldn't have fought for it so hard," Optimus insisted.

"Right, boss," Chromia agreed as she grabbed a data pad to peruse. "We're missing something here, we just to figure out what it is."

"With hopefully no more distractions," Jazz cut in.

Chromia just grinned at him and got to work.

* * *

Things weren't going quite as Nightshade had planned when she first confronted Prowl about Blitzangel's attitude toward her. When she complained that Blitzangel had been rude to her and made her feel very unwelcome at Iacon, Prowl had not completely jumped to her side as she would have hoped. Prowl had taken a moment to consider the statement and then ventured to guess that maybe Nightshade had misinterpreted the purple femme's intentions.

"She can be a little abrupt in her speech at times, but she's very kind," Prowl insisted and Nightshade felt a pang of jealousy. "What exactly did she say to you?"

At recalling the last conversation, Nightshade would have flushed a little if she had the ability to do so. "I don't really remember the exact words, I just felt like she really didn't like me. I don't think she is as nice a femme as you think she is Prowl. I felt it very clearly, she doesn't like me."

"Let's go talk to her," Prowl then suggested as he led her to the private elevator only high ranking officers used. "I'm sure it's all a misunderstanding. I would really like it if the two of you got along."

Nightshade tried not to balk on the outside. Prowl wanted them to be friends? What kind of hold did this ex-Decepticon femme have on him? Prowl had insisted she join him to speak with Blitzangel, but Nightshade was really not looking forward to the meeting. She didn't want to try and iron things out with the other femme, she just wanted Prowl to believe her and be done with it.

They reached the desired floor and Prowl knocked on an apartment door. He heard a muffled male voice from the other side call for them to come in. It didn't quite sound like Bluestreak, but maybe that was just because there was a door in the way. Having the access code, Prowl let himself in with Nightshade close behind.

She gasped when she saw the extravagant space of the room. Now this was the kind of place she was talking about. Nightshade had always been a femme of taste and luxury. This was the sort of living quarters that would fit her quite well.

There was a group of mechs congregating on the couch while a loud video game coruscated on the screen. Prowl approached them, four mechs in total. Only two of which he was familiar with. He cleared his throat to get their attention.

"Oh hey Prowl," Sideswipe said nonchalantly, only glancing up from his controller. "You want a turn?"

One of the other mechs took one glance at Prowl and froze. Sunstreaker glanced at the petrified mech and nudged him with his elbow.

"Hey, get back in the game, we're losing." He then glanced at his commanding officer. "Prowl, this is Streamline and Drag. They were pulling the last shift with us so we invited them up."

"This isn't your place to be inviting anyone," Prowl shot back, unimpressed. "Where's Bluestreak?"

"I dunno, working. Haven't seen him today," Sideswipe said, optics glued to the screen.

Prowl frowned deeper. "Then who let you in?"

"Angel gave the codes to us. She said we could come in whenever we wanted."

"She gave you the codes?"

"Yeah, said something about too much space and not enough bots around."

Prowl tried to quell his irritation. That was not what he had planned for her, but he couldn't tell her who she could and could not invite to her quarters. "Is Angel even here right now?"

"Yeah, I think she came in a little while ago. She's probably in her room."

Now Prowl was openly disapproving. "Don't come in here when no one is home."

"Sorry Prowl," Sideswipe said. "But Angel said she doesn't mind. Sunstreaker needed a place to hide from R-"

He was cut off as his twin reached over Streamline to slap his brother.

"Get off our backs, Prowl," Sunstreaker barked. "It's none of your business."

Prowl decided he would let this go for now. If Angel was home, there wasn't much he could do about it anyway. He knew she would insist they could stay. Instead he set his concentration on the initial reason they had knocked on her door. He steered Nightshade down the hall to the last door. However, Prowl's hand hesitated to knock.

Nightshade had to smile. Prowl was still adorably old fashioned when it came to things like entering a femme's berthroom.

"Here, I got this," she insisted. "Let me go in and talk to her femme to femme. We'll sort this out."

The black and white Autobot looked pleased. "Sounds like a good idea. I'll wait out here."  
Of course he would. Nightshade approached the door to knock and it slid open of its own accord. It hadn't been locked. She shot one more dazzling smile to the mech waiting outside before going in, letting the door slide shut behind her.

By all first appearances, the personal room was empty and bare as could be. It hardly looked like anyone lived there at all, no personal effects of any kind. The berth was impressive, far larger than a femme of that size would need. Nightshade admired herself in a full size mirror on the wall before noticing a shelf with some random items. A crafted metal rose and some sort of mini portable radio. The femme picked up the device, pushing the play button curiously. A melody flowed out in a different language that wasn't part of her impressive language databanks.

"What are you doing in here?"

Nightshade quickly stopped the device and put it back. Spinning guiltily around, she saw Blitzangel stepping out of the shower room, the last bit of cleaning solvent evaporating from her form.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't help but notice-" Nightshade began, motioning to the shelf.

"That's not what I asked," Blitzangel interrupted. "Kindly remove yourself from my bedroom, please."

Even though she was in the wrong, Nightshade was not used to being bossed around by anyone and it annoyed her. "I'm here because the Autobot second in command wants me to talk to you," she said with authority. "So you need to listen to-"

Blitzangel was already out the door, staring down said Autobot second who was waiting in the hall. "Did you bring _this_ into my apartment without asking my permission?" she accused, motioning emphatically at Nightshade.

Prowl was taken aback at the accusation, he struggled for a response. "You've got these other mechs coming and going when you're not even home."

"I told them they could, Prowl. They don't come into my bedroom and snoop through my things while I'm in the shower."

Prowl could see Nightshade flinch in embarrassment from over Blitzangel's shoulder. The green femme quickly slid out of the room over to Prowl.

"You, on the other hand," Blitzangel continued, "brought in this stranger without even asking me."

"She's not a stranger," Prowl defended. "I've known her for eons."

Blitzangel pressed her mouth into a firm line. "May I talk to you in here privately please?"

Prowl looked hesitant to go into such a place with her alone.

"Now, please," she ordered and Prowl found himself obeying.

The door shut behind him and Blitzangel locked it this time. Then she leaned her hip against the tall berth, arms folded across her chest. "What's going on? What did you bring that femme up here and leave her in my room?"

"That was a mistake, I'm sorry," Prowl responded, still not looking comfortable with his surroundings. "She said she was going to talk to you, but I shouldn't have let her go into your room like that. I brought her up here so you could get to know each other better. Nightshade told me the two of you got off on the wrong foot the first time you talked. She said she felt like you were a little rude to her."

"Oh, is that what she said?" Blitzangel shot back, even more irritated than before.

"I know you would never be overtly rude on purpose to someone you just met. I thought you both just needed another chance to get to know one another."

"So you let her into my room so she could go through my things? Now I have to sterilize the place."

"Hey," Prowl warned, "that was uncalled for."

"She is nasty, Prowl. I don't want her up here again."

"You didn't even give it a chance to get to know her. I think you'd really like her."

"Oh I got to know her plenty the first time we talked. I'm sorry, but I don't like her and I don't want her in my apartment again."

"I'm the one who got you this apartment." Now it was Prowl's turn to get irritated. "You didn't even want it."

"Does that mean I have to let any random bot you bring in go through my things?"

"I was hoping the two of you would get along and you could both room in here together."

"And who will get the big room?" Blitzangel challenged. "Do you think your little princess would be happy with Bluestreak's?"

Prowl's mouth opened, but no sound came out as he tried to come up with a response.

"What's wrong with the femme bunkers? They had room for her," Blitzangel continued.

"She said she wasn't feeling too welcome among them."

"Oh come on, Prowl. You saw how they welcomed her! She was a frickin' hero! She's just lying to you to get what she wants."

Prowl growled. "I am not going to stand here and listen to you speak badly about a friend of mine. A femme you hardly even know. I care about her and it surprises me you are being so horrible to her, it really does. I thought you were better than that."

"Fine," Blitzangel said, waving her hands in a form of surrender. "I don't want to argue with you. I'm sorry you're disappointed, but I don't think the two of us will get along. And until you take this room away from me, it's mine. You're always welcome over, but ask before you bring strange bots to my apartment. Now please escort her out."

Prowl looked like there was more he was going to say, but he, too decided he would rather not fight about it any more and left. Blitzangel waited until she was sure they were completely out of the apartment before leaving her room.

* * *

"I'm really sorry about how that went," Prowl said as he escorted Nightshade down to a lower level. After they had been asked to leave, Prowl felt he at least owed it to the pretty femme to take her out for a drink since he couldn't yet get her into the new quarters she was hoping for. And he certainly didn't mind any extra time he could spend with her. "Blitzangel is usually so sweet. But she's also been through quite a bit. She's still adjusting to everything in Iacon herself."

"So you care about her," Nightshade pressed, eager for more information about this new femme.

"She is under my care so her welfare and health do concern me."

"Ah, so she's more like your ward. You're takin' care of her."

"Yes, that's somewhat the situation."

"She's a young femme?"

"Very young," Prowl confirmed.

"Ah, that makes a lot of sense then," Nightshade said, satisfied.

Prowl tipped his head curiously at her.

"She's jealous Prowl. She's used to getting all your attention and now ya'll are spendin' it elsewhere. She's acting out like she's newly sparked."

Prowl paused with the energon almost to his mouth as that new thought hit him. Blitzangel never struck him as the jealous type of personality. But Nightshade could be right. It's very possible she had gotten used to all the attention she received from everyone. Prowl especially had always been very focused on her. Now that his attentions were divided with another femme, maybe she was feeling a little left out. She was still young after all.

"Perhaps she's even developed a crush on you," Nightshade needled. "Young femmes 'kin respond that way ta male mentors. Now that you and I are together again, she could even see me as a rival."

Prowl sat still, letting that even more foreign idea wash over him. That seemed less likely than the first suggestion. He was nudged out of his thoughts as Nightshade leaned closer, slightly nuzzling the side of his helm.

"Do ya think you could still locate some nice, personal quarters for me in the tower?" she whispered in a sensual tone.

It made Prowl's door panels quiver, though he tried to quickly compose himself. "I'll see what I can do. Though the tower is packed pretty tight right now. It's usually just for higher ranking officers and officials."

"And your little ward, for some reason," Nightshade pointed out. "It hardly seems fair. You can find her a room, but not me." She moved in closer, optics wide and hurt. "Don't you care about me as must as you do about her?"

He put his hand on hers. "Of course I care about you. Very much. I said I'll see what I can do, but even I have to adhere to the rules. It will take some time. Are you sure it's really that bad for you living in the femme bunkers? They seemed to think so highly of you."

"Yes, they did," Nightshade huffed. "They were very grateful at first that I brought one of their own home. But at the same time, you know it's only natural they would be jealous 'a me. I mean, I've lived this exciting life among the stars while they all've been stuck here on this planet. I tried to keep peace with them, but I can't help that they envy me. You understand."

Prowl pressed his mouth together in thought, hand still on hers. He didn't want her to feel unwanted here on Cybertron. He was well aware she still owned a shuttle. She could leave anytime she wanted and Prowl did not want her to leave.

"Please be patient. I promise I'll do whatever I can for you."

Nightshade smiled in satisfaction. "I know you will."

* * *

Blaster lightly slung himself onto the high stool where two other Autobots were sitting at a tiny, round table. He sipped his energon as he eyed the blue mech to his right.

"So, how did it go last night with Moonracer, huh?"

Mirage shot him a dark look.

Blaster put his energon down. "That bad, huh?"

Mirage allowed his shoulders to relax and vented some air. "No, it wasn't that bad. It's just... it's always the same every time we're together. She acts happy, we have fun spending time with each other, but she doesn't seem interested in taking the relationship further and I don't know why. I always see her hanging out with different mechs. She goes out with anyone who asks her."

"Yeah, that's Moonracer," the little yellow femme sitting with them confirmed. "She loves hanging out with anyone and everyone. The boys won't leave her alone. But I really don't think she wants a romantic partner right now."

"I suppose not," Mirage sighed. "I just... it seemed like we had some sort of connection the first few times we met. Maybe it was just me."

"Don't give up yet," Blaster encouraged. "Maybe she'll come around later. And if not, you're a good looking mech and there's other lovely femmes to be had. You can find someone else."

"I suppose," Mirage relented, though it hurt his pride.

In the heydays of Cybertron, Mirage was rich, well educated and high in social stature. All he had to do was look at a femme back in those days and he could have her if he so wished. Here he wasn't any more important than anyone else. It wasn't bad to be a soldier, but it was different from how he had been raised. And it was frustrating to have a femme not return his interest for the first time.

At his back, a lost looking purple femme had stepped onto the same level. Blaster was the only one who noticed her and he sat up a little straighter. Bluestreak had noticed her, too and hurried to meet the femme. They talked for a moment and then Bluestreak pointed out their table. Blaster's optics brightened and he smiled wide as she approached.

"Blitzangel! Good to see you!"

Mirage sat up from his depressed slouch and looked behind him with alert optics. "Oh, hey. Blitzangel."

"Hi Blaster, Mirage," Blitzangel smiled sweetly, obviously happy to see them after so long. "Haven't seen you guys for a while. And it's just Angel if you want. I kind of like that better."

Blaster got up from his seat, smiling wide. He was still so much taller than she was, even though Blitzangel's new body gained her a few inches from her old.

"How you doing, kid? Is it alright if I give you a hug?"

"Of course!" Blitzangel grinned back brightly.

The words were barely out of her mouth before Blaster swept her up in a tight embrace, the tips of her feet barely scraping the floor. He held her there quietly for a few moments before setting her back down. The femme was still grinning. Blaster always gave the best hugs.

"It's good to see your pretty face again," he then said. "I hope I get to see it more often."

"That can be arranged," the femme smirked.

"Oh, this is Twilight," Blaster then motioned to the yellow femme sitting at the table with them. "She hangs out with us a lot. I think you two kind of know each other?"

Blitzangel suddenly looked shy at the smaller femme. Twilight was one of the femmes that had been taken to Xartin with her. She had seen Blitzangel's darker programming at its ugliest. It wasn't something the purple femme was proud of.

"Hi," Twilight said brightly, no judgment in her voice. "I'm glad to see you're doing much better now."

The little femme mouthed silently "thank you" and Blitzangel felt warm. Twilight knew somehow that it was Blitzangel's agreement to fight in the bloodiest battles that had saved the tiny femme from dying in the savage ring herself.

Blitzangel quickly jumped back into the conversation for the mech's benefit. "Uh, yes, thank you. I've had a lot of the... bad programming worked out of my system." She then turned back to Blaster. "Can I have a moment of your time? Are you busy?"

"Lady, you can have anything of mine any time you want," Blaster grinned appreciatively eying her up and down. "Why don't you turn around for me?"

Blitzangel grabbed his arm good-naturedly, pulling him away. "Same old Blaster, I see."

"Always," he played back as he was dragged off. "Blaster will always be here for pretty femmes like yourself."

"Uh huh," she agreed noncommittally.

She led them to a more private area with out any prying audials, their meeting partially concealed behind a support beam.

"I have a really big favor to ask, it's kind of important. I'm not sure if you can do it," Blitzangel said, suddenly serious as she pulled out a disk from her chest compartment. "This has footage of my old life on it. My _old_, old life. It's been damaged so I don't know what's really left on it." She gazed sadly at the cracked disk. It had been through almost as much abuse as she had. "If you could see what you can salvage from this, I'd like to keep what I can. But at the same time, I can't let it stay the way it is, you know what I mean?"

It was Nightshade snooping through her things that made Blitzangel act. The intruding femme wasn't anywhere near the disk containing the home movie footage of her younger self and her family, but if she had found it- if anyone outside that small circle of knowledge had found it- what would happen then? It hurt, but Blitzangel knew he had to do something with it or forever worry about the risk of it being discovered.

Blaster took the disk from her, now all business. He knew the weight of the task he had been given.

"Yeah, I gotcha. I can translate the language into Cybertronian. I can probably do something with the picture, too. It will change a lot of what's on here, but the basic idea would remain the same."

Blitzangel ached to know she was going to be losing certain aspects of her beloved tape forever, but she nodded. "That's all I can hope for."

"It will take me a while to do it, too. I don't know when I'll be able to finish."

"Whatever you can do is fine. Thank you, Blaster."

He touched the side of her neck, the thumb of his large hand easily reaching up to rub her cheek. "Hey, anything you need, babe. You know I got your back."

"I really appreciate it, too. Oh! Let me sync with you, I'll give you the digits to my personal quarters."

His optic ridge rose with intrigue as she grabbed his wrist and learned his personal frequency.

"Aren't you so straightforward now."

"Don't even try to take it the wrong way," she shot back playfully. "It's a huge empty space, really nice. A great place to hang out. And it's too quiet. I like having other bots there to make some noise. You can share this with others but, you know, be selective with this information. Prowl's already throwing a hissy fit about me sharing the wealth."

"And yet that hasn't stopped you."

Blitzangel grinned. Recalling her argument with the second in command earlier, she felt more than vindicated to piss him off a little.

She was about to leave when she noticed a certain femme that seemed to always show up just in time to ruin her day.

Nightshade was on the same level, but thankfully nowhere near Blitzangel this time. However, she was snuggled up to Smokescreen, practically in his lap and they weren't being too shy about showing affections for one another.

It disgusted Blitzangel's sensibilities. Didn't that Nightshade do anything beside throwing herself at mechs? Wouldn't she be expected to do something around this base to pull her own weight? Or did she use her sex appeal on mechs such as Prowl so her laziness would be overlooked?

Suddenly Blitzangel felt bad for Prowl. He deserved better.

* * *

Blitzangel wiped the grease from her fingers and more paint flecked off. Her hands were looking a little pathetic these days after putting in so much work between Iacon and Drift's pet shuttle. She wondered if Ratchet wouldn't mind touching up her fingers. He seemed to enjoy it when they lived at the Ark. But things were different at Iacon. He was busier now. Maybe she should just do it herself.

Wheeljack pulled himself out from under the massive consul and arched his back strut, making a popping noise.

"That should do it," he announced. "All new wires, no more sticky buttons."

"It's about time," Red Alert huffed. "You would think when some of my equipment goes down, it would immediately be at the top of the repair list."

"A sticky control panel is not a high priority when all your cameras and radios still work just fine," Wheeljack responded.

"Not even my fault. The jokers in my absence thought it was okay to bring energon into the surveillance room. Well no more. I run a tighter ship than that."

Wheeljack just patted the shorter Autobot on the shoulder and looked at his work list. "We're really knocking them down today, Angel. We've gone through more than twice the orders I thought we would."

"Happy to help," the femme smiled as she swung her feet back and forth.

Red Alert frowned at her a bit for sitting on the equipment desk, but she wasn't hurting anything so he let it slide.

"There you are," Jazz announced as he stepped into the room.

Wheeljack internally groaned at the possibility the second would give him another repair job. But Jazz zeroed in on Blitzangel.

"Man I've had a slagging day." He plopped himself in the nearest chair and wheeled it over to Blitzangel's lap where he promptly buried his face in it, arms hanging at his sides. He let out a tired moan. "I can't look at another schematic, my processor will explode."

"Poor baby," she cooed, rubbing the base of his neck cables, "you have been working so hard."

"I have," Jazz insisted, milking the sympathy. "I've been running the same data through my head over and over and not getting anywhere. And Prime's not going to let me stop going through it until we figure out what those slagging Decepticons have been up to."

"What does Prowl think they're doing?"

"I haven't heard a slagging word from Prowl all day," Jazz grouched. "We sent him all the information. He said he's being studying it and he would let us know if he comes up with anything. But from what I understand, he's found himself rather preoccupied with other things."

"Yeah, I've noticed he's been... making a pest of himself elsewhere," Blitzangel mumbled.

Jazz lifted his head to look at her curiously.

"Anything I can do?" she then asked.

"Can you do it elsewhere?" Red Alert cut in with annoyance. "Stop canoodling on my instrument panel and clear my control room if you please."

Wheeljack left to finish the rest of his work list alone since Jazz insisted he needed Blitzangel to be his muse on whatever it was he was working on. The second in command led them to the small elevator that was key coded for only high ranking officials. For a moment Blitzangel thought he was just going to escort her back to her room. But Jazz pressed the button for a higher level- almost clear to the top.

They emerged onto a rather unremarkable floor, full of meeting rooms and offices. Jazz led them to one far more cluttered than the others, full of wall to wall charts posted haphazardly everywhere. More were spread on the table, sprinkled with data pads.

Two mechs were in the room. Optimus Prime, who's back was to the door as he poured over a large data screen projected in front of him. He didn't even bother to turn to see who had entered.

Prowl, who was fiddling with different charts on the large round table, did look up to inspect the new arrivals. His optics widened a little when he saw that Blitzangel was with his fellow second. He looked a little uncomfortable to see her. Probably because of their argument earlier. Blitzangel half expected him to ask Jazz to escort her right back out, but Jazz spoke first.

"Nice to finally see you around, Prowl. I hope you haven't been shirking your duties." Jazz plopped himself heavily in the nearest chair. "We've been going around in circles up here."

"I'm fully capable of multitasking," Prowl insisted. "I have analyzed all the same data you have while taking care of other responsibilities. You on the other hand..." His gaze wandered back up to Blitzangel. "I wonder if you can keep such focus with distractions in the room."

Upon the mention of distractions, Optimus turned around to finally notice the femme in their company. "Hello, Angel. How have you been?"

"I'm fine, Optimus Prime, thank you. Um... is it okay for me to be here? This seems like important stuff. I can go."

"No, no," Jazz insisted patting the chair next to him. "I need her Prime. I need a sounding board. I'm trying to find a fresh perspective on this. Maybe she can help me."

Optimus thought about it. These floors were for authorized officers only. But Blitzangel wasn't one of his soldiers either and this wasn't exactly top secret information. Whether she knew or didn't know about what was in this room mattered little.

"That's fine. Though you may leave any time you wish if Jazz becomes too annoying."

Aforementioned second threw his leader a look but let it slide. Prowl didn't look happy about it, but kept silence and turned his frowning attention back to the files in front of him.

"So let's get to work," Jazz said, grabbing the arm rests of Blitzangel's chair and pulling her closer so they were almost touching knees to knees.

"Okay," she responded, "so... what's going on anyway? Can you explain it a bit what you're trying to figure out?"

"So the Decepticons attacked our outpost, right? Burned it to the ground. Now that they have control of that area, they're digging."

"Digging for what?" Blitzangel wondered.

Jazz raised his finger in an "Ah ha" type gesture. "That's what we're trying to figure out. They obviously want whatever it is bad enough to spend a lot of energy and bot power on this. But we have no idea what it is."

"Maybe you should ask some of the femmes? They probably know what's down there."

"They do," Jazz agreed. "And we've asked them. All they've said is there's just a whole lot of nothing under that area for levels and levels."

Blitzangel leaned back thoughtfully and her chair squeaked.

"So what do you think?" Jazz pressed. "You were a part of the Decepticons for a while. You also lived deep down there with the Deceptifemmes."

"I only lived with the Decepticon femmes for like four days," she replied. "It wasn't really enough to memorize what's under the surface of the entire planet."

"He may be going after the female Decepticons themselves. They're the only resource down there worth looking for," Prowl offered.

"We've covered this already," Jazz sighed. "If you'd have been here, you would've known. We had Chromia up here earlier and she said it was unlikely. For one, while we don't know the exact location of the Deceptifemme base, she was quite sure it wasn't anywhere around there. Two, the Decepticons have known the Deceptifemmes are still around for over a year. So why be so desperate to root them out now? And three, even if the femmes were in the area, why would Megatron spend so much time and energy attacking us and then digging for them? That's quite an expensive enterprise to root out a few femmes with hardly a scrap of energon between them.

"It just doesn't make any sense. Megatron wouldn't put lives on the line and spend so much energy digging into our back yard for petty revenge. Not unless he's finally gone off his nut. And last I heard he's been reported to be as sane as usual."

Blitzangel began rocking back and forth in her chair which squeaked with every movement. She didn't seem to notice though Prowl glanced up with annoyance at the sound.

"So what do we know for sure is down there?" Blitzangel mused.

Jazz grabbed a large schematic, tugging it away from Prowl. The second looked even more put out with the situation now.

"See here," Jazz said, pointing at the location the Decepticons were occupying. "They have several solid layers they have to dig through, which is why they've been digging for so long. But after that, there's literally a whole lot of nothing. A big open space where the guardian manufacturing plant used to be."

Jazz tossed Prowl back his schematic and grabbed a different one.

"See, the guardians were these massive bots, like Omega Supreme. Back when this level was the surface of the planet, they built them here and then shipped them to anywhere on Cybertron they were needed through these massive transport pipes."

_It's faster to go through the planet than around it, _Blitzangel recalled from her excursions with Drift.

"Those tubes would be big enough to ship an army," Blitzangel said quietly. "Move them quickly to any part of the planet."

"Right," Jazz agreed. "But again, _why_ ship them? Where? What's Megatron's plan? What's he after?"

"I do know the Deceptifemmes chose to live down so deep because the tunnels were too small for most Decepticons to fit," Blitzangel offered, still being obnoxious, rocking with her squeaking chair.

"We've been over this," Prowl cut in, sounding perturbed. "Spending so much energy on a full army for petty revenge is not Megatron's style. He would only be going after the Decepticon femmes if they had something he wanted very badly." Prowl raised two fingers as he checked them off. "Megatron's favorite things are weapons and energy. And according to you, Blitzangel, those femmes don't have a surplus of either. They're down there trying to scrape together a living, not guarding some awesome power supply."

The squeaking stopped abruptly and Blitzangel went stalk still in the silent room. All optics were on her. Even Optimus had turned around.

"They might have something," the femme said hesitantly.

"What?" Prowl asked, a bit harsher than he needed to.

"Um, they might possibly have a power generator that... creates energy on its own."

"You mean they have a device that just generates its own power?"

"Yes."

"Where did they get such a thing?"

Blitzangel's voice was tiny as she looked directly at Optimus Prime. "I built it." _Right after I got out of Vector Sigma. Right after Alpha Trion showed me how._

She wasn't sure if she could even build another. The technology felt almost like magic to her, even now. The knowledge came and went as it pleased. She had no control over it whatsoever.

Prowl and Jazz stared at her slack jawed. They were both scrambling to come up with questions, she could see it on their faces. Maybe she should have mentioned something about it in the report. How was she supposed to know it would be so important now?

"Well now we know what Megatron's after," Optimus said, cutting short any interrogation his seconds were about to perform. "Now the question is how powerful will it make him when he gets a hold of it?"

"It doesn't make energon," Blitzangel continued, only looking at him. "The energy produced is not compatible to living bodies with sparks. The femmes would use it to power their lights, their early warning systems, so they could conserve the energon for themselves."

"Does Megatron know this?" Optimus then asked.

Blitzangel shrugged. "He didn't get any information about it from me. Probably from Soundwave or possibly Ravage. I don't know if either are aware of its limitations."

"But the Decepticons do have top scientists," Prowl stated. "If they got their hands on that technology it's possible they could develop something else with it. Something that could create unlimited energon."

"And that would tip the scales heavily in the Decepticon's favor," Optimus finished.

"So what say you, boss?" Jazz asked. "Do we assemble a strike force to kick Megatron's can?"

Optimus Prime remained silent, lost in thought as all optics watched him closely.

The loud speaker clicked on before he could answer.

"Prime, this is Blaster in the main communications room. I got an urgent message on the line and you're not going to believe who it is."

"Go ahead Blaster," Optimus said.

"We're receiving a transmission coming in from down in Cybertron. I mean way down. I got female Decepticons hailing us on the line."

Prowl and Jazz looked at each other. Blitzangel clutched the arms of her chair.

"And what do they want?" Optimus asked.

Blaster's response was completely unexpected. "Believe it or not Prime, they're asking us for help."


	23. Chapter 23: Survival of the Spark

Rising Generations  
Chapter 23: Survival of the Spark

"Optimus, you can't be serious about letting her go on this mission," Prowl insisted as he followed at his leader's heels. "She's not ready to go into the field like this."

The Prime was already walking briskly; his long legs required Prowl to really work to keep up.

"Blitzangel is the one who volunteered. She thinks she is ready," Optimus countered, "and she is right. She knows these femmes; she's forged relationships with some of them. That qualifies her to join this mission."

"It's dangerous," Prowl countered.

"All missions have their dangers, Prowl, but I have also granted approval for you and Jazz to go as well, as you requested. You don't believe the two of you can keep her safe?"

Prowl stayed quiet.

"From what I understand, Blitzangel is also a very capable fighter and has been taking care of herself for a while now. I am confident she can stand on her own."

"I'm not questioning her battle prowess, Prime. I'm worried about her mental state. Can she handle this emotionally?"

Optimus paused and turned to his second. "Prowl, I would not ask her to go if she didn't want to. She was the one to request this. If she wants to move forward, I will not be the one holding her back."

"Understood," Prowl accepted, though his face was blank.

"Good. Now let's get that shuttle out as soon as possible. This is an emergency."

* * *

Though he would not speak against his leader once the decision was finalized, Prowl still wasn't happy about Blitzangel's inclusion on the rescue mission. His displeasure was almost palpable as he sat in his seat, awaiting the liftoff of the shuttle.

In theory, the mission wouldn't be too involved. The Decepti-femmes were asking for assistance, but not the direct involvement of the entire Autobot army. They had requested only supplies- energon and ammunition- and the evacuation of their wounded. From the sound of it, the Decepticons had already found them and there was a small war going on layers and layers beneath Cybertron's surface.

Optimus Prime had immediately approved the request for assistance. The subject of the Decepti-femme's renewable energy source had yet to be breached with the response plan. While he certainly didn't want the Decepticons to have it, he didn't want to steal it from their female counterparts either. It was a tricky situation. The Prime's first act, as always, was to aid the survival of those under attack. The rest would come later.

Prowl would have to leave those issues to Optimus for the time being. As the shuttle launched for the destination coordinates, he knew he would need to give this mission all of his focus. Springer was at the helm, Jazz in the copilot's seat. Usually, that was Prowl's seat. This time he was one row behind so he could make sure Blitzangel understood her part in the plan.

She was the only femme on board. Elita thought it best not to allow any of her soldiers to go. There was bad blood between the Autobot and Decepticon femmes ... dating even from before Spectra, the Decepti-femme leader, sold the Autobots out to body traffickers. It was a deep feud spanning millions of years. Elita thought it best if the Autobot femmes stayed away from this first attempt at cooperation between the factions.

"Remember, you're only here for one job," Prowl reminded of Blitzangel as the shuttle began its descent toward their destination. "All we want you to do is help ensure we have further friendly communication between them in the future. You're a liaison, someone they can trust to talk to. But if fighting breaks out for any reason, you will NOT engage. You will return to the safety of the shuttle and let us handle it, understood?"

Blitzangel reached out to the white fist clutching an armrest and squeezed his hand. "It's fine, Prowl. This is going to turn out for the better. You'll see; everything will be okay."

Inside her head, however, Blitzangel worried about Spectra. The Decepti-femme leader had seemed a little ruthless and unhinged (not to mention her blatant selling out of her gender for petty reasons). If the situation had gotten so desperate that she was now asking for help, maybe there would be room for compromises. It was all Blitzangel could hope for, and she wanted to. Tired of all the negative thinking, she wanted to look forward with optimism. She wanted to help those femmes who had been down in the smallest, dankest parts of the planet for so long. Everyone deserved to see the light of day.

Prowl looked down at the dainty hand squeezing his and it brought another issue to mind. "There is something else I would like to speak with you about," he said softly. "I think I may have figured out the reasons for your attitude lately."

"Huh?" the femme asked stupidly, having no clue what he was talking about.

"Since Nightshade has arrived, I've had my attentions divided elsewhere. You worry I won't have any time for you. I just want you to know that there is no need to be jealous. I will always make time for you if you need me."

Blitzangel's mouth fell open in a silent laugh, incredulity flooding over her.

Jazz whipped back in his seat. "Prowl, no," he said in a low, warning tone.

Prowl was blanking on his gaffe, but he could feel Blitzangel's look like a palpable weight. The silence was punctuated by the shuttle landing solidly on the planet's surface.

"Are you serious?" she blurted. If she hadn't been belted in, she would have jumped to her feet. "I am an adult, you idiot!"

Autobots couldn't scramble out of the shuttle fast enough to get away from the scene as it exploded.

"Just because I'm not over a million years old, that doesn't make me a child!"

_Prowl, you don't say the jealousy word to a femme,_ Jazz radioed to him privately. _Not ever, ever ever. _

But even Jazz was gone from the shuttle to escape the argument. Prowl was left on his own.

"Where did you even get this ridiculous idea that-" Blitzangel paused when she found the answer to her own question. "Oh no, you've been talking to that green femme."

"Her name is Nightshade," Prowl said irritably.

"And she's messing with you! You're so much smarter than this, why are you letting her dictate what you think?"

"Maybe she has a point," Prowl challenged, tone calm. "You get irritable whenever she's mentioned."

"I get angry on _your_ behalf! She's stringing you along, using you! And you're too infatuated to notice! She doesn't care-"

Prowl cut her off, physically touching her shoulder to silence her. At first, Blitzangel thought he just didn't want to hear what she had to say. But he wasn't even looking at her. His head was down so his hearing could be focused elsewhere.

Before Blitzangel could even ask what was going on, she began to notice it: the heavy moaning of metal under too much pressure. Before either could figure out what that meant, there was a sickening, snapping sound and the world lurched violently.

Outside, Jazz had been standing closest to the shuttle, wondering if he should step in to play mediator, when he heard the groaning of metal as well. Then the surface of the planet shattered like an eggshell under the weight of the shuttle. Jazz scrambled back so as not to fall in as the entire shuttle disappeared.

The Autobots peered down into the new hole on Cybertron's surface, only to see a black, gaping maw of darkness. Nothing was down there but empty air as far as optics could see. There was still the sound of crackling in the distance as the massive shuttle continued to plummet. Jazz felt his spark sink in horror as realization set in. They had been tricked, and Prowl and Blitzangel were still in the shuttle.

* * *

Blitzangel was practically pasted to the wall of the shuttle as she experienced the weightlessness of free fall. Every once in a while, the ship's bulwark crashed into pipes or broken paneling. Each snapped and shattered under the weight, the shuttle continuing to plummet down layer after layer. The femme was frozen where she clutched the wall, clinging to the solid surface.

"The Decepti-femmes tricked us," Prowl spat, impressively standing with full balance in the middle of the floor. "They wanted the supplies, but they didn't want to make an alliance with us. Wherever this shuttle is going, we shouldn't be on it. We'll be outnumbered."

He dragged himself over to the shuttle door and forced it open. It was immediately ripped off by the sheer wall of metal detritus from past generations. Wind whipped into the cabin, tearing at the joints of the door panels on his back.

"There's got to be a way out of here," he yelled over the scream of air.

He felt Blitzangel peer over his shoulder and then back away. This was probably more than she could handle. The second in command was quite resolved to tackle the problem himself until Blitzangel tackled him. The femme charged at full speed from behind and they both went sailing into the black, open space of ancient history long forgotten.

The dead weight of the hulking shuttle pulled it down faster than the two smaller bodies attempting to slow their own descent. Blitzangel's arms had been around Prowl's waist when they shot out into the open air, then she was violently knocked away from him. They ricocheted off metal surfaces, the jolt of the sudden trajectory change bouncing them around like a ping pong ball in a dryer.

Warning systems peppered Prowl's neural net as his body took damage. He finally rolled to a stop, feeling like his spark chamber had been bounced up into his mouth. He was lying face down, one arm dangling out into wide darkness. Somewhere below, the shuttle had crashed to a halt. Not too far below at that. He was too close. He needed to get away from this place, get to higher levels, find the surface. He also needed to find Blitzangel.

As Prowl pulled himself to his feet, all the damage he had incurred immediately began to complain all over his personal status report. Fortunately, all the important systems still seemed to be functioning; he would be okay.

There was the sound of movement behind him and Prowl whipped around. He instantly felt pain rip through his back at the movement. He tried to reach behind to the wound, but it was the joint of his door panel, too far for his fingers. One of the panels was completely shredded and hanging at a broken angle.

A feminine groan momentarily took his attention away from his own pains.

"Angel?" Prowl flipped on his headlights, illuminating Blitzangel's body draped upside down on a pile of rubble. Her head scraped the ground as she tried to move. "Are you damaged?"

"A little banged up," she replied as she attempted to get her systems righted again. Rolling over, she heard the clatter of broken glass behind her. "Aw, man. There goes my cockpit." Standing a bit shakily, she wriggled around, trying to dislodge the last of the broken glass from her back. "How about you? Oh, ouch." She immediately caught sight of the mangled door and moved to inspect it. "Does it hurt?"

Prowl winced in response when she tried to move it.

"Well, that settles that," Blitzangel announced as she opened the hip compartment to her tool kit, "That needs to come off."

She moved behind him and set about severing wires before full extraction.  
"That was a stupid plan," Prowl said to the dark tunnel. His systems began to forget his door panel was ever a part of his body as all the connecting wires were removed. "You could have killed us both doing that."

"Well, you were the one who said we needed to get out of the shuttle," Blitzangel responded idly as she removed what was left of the door. "We didn't really have the time to wait for you to come up with something better." She paused, pulling back to inspect her handiwork. "I think I'm going to remove the other one, too. That way you won't be lopsided and going around in circles."

"What do you think I am, a one-oar canoe without it?" Prowl asked, nodding over his shoulder.

Blitzangel smiled slightly. "You'll still have better balance if both are removed. though it would be funny to see you only able to make left turns."

Prowl didn't say anything. She wasn't sure if he was amused or not. Probably not. They weren't exactly in the safest place, nor in the best of shape. Prowl certainly wasn't the type to rest easy under such circumstances.

Just as Blitzangel removed the second door, Prowl's lights switched off completely, plunging them into total darkness.

"What?" Blitzangel asked, her voice suddenly quiet.

"I'm picking up a signature on my sensors," he responded, turning to peer out into the open hole. Somewhere on the other side of the gaping maw, a thin light scratched against the darkness.

Blitzangel felt the mech's arm brace in front of her, backing her further into the tunnel.

"We need to get out of here," he said quietly. Hopefully, any enemies in the area would be too preoccupied with their new shuttle to worry about stragglers.

The femme fell silent and serious. Even with his night vision, Prowl had a hard time picking her out among all the rust and debris around them. Then he felt her small hand clamp onto his wrist. She pulled him off through the darkness, deeper into the ancient refuse of a once happy and industrious people.

* * *

"It was a setup, Prime! They played us for suckers!" Jazz yelled over the radio.

"Wait, wait, slow down Jazz," his leader's voice responded. "I don't understand. How do you know the shuttle was stolen?"

"It just dropped, Prime. It was crazy. We landed exactly where those harpies said we should and we parked that thing right onto their trap. The top layer snapped under the weight and there is nothing underneath, just a massive hole. Those sneaky femmes stole all our equipment and brought it right to their back door."

"Prowl and Blitzangel were still in the shuttle when it dropped?"

"Yeah, Prime," Jazz sighed. "They're gone. I don't even-" he paused as Springer shot an arm out again to block Jazz from wandering too close to the hole. The second in command kept pacing in his agitation. He kept wanting to look down at the gaping maw, even though he knew there was nothing to see. They had all agreed it was best to stay far from the hole, not knowing how much more of the chasm's lip was rendered too unsteady to hold their weight.

"I don't know what to do, Prime. We're stranded out here. No shuttle, no ammo, no supplies. It will take all day to drive back to Iacon and I can't just leave them down there."

There was a pause on the other end. "Do I need to put Springer in charge?" Optimus asked.

Jazz's jaw dropped. He suddenly realized he had been panicking all over the radio and it was very unlike him. Now was not the time to fall apart. "No, Prime," he said with a calmer voice. "I'm okay, just lost my cool for a second. I guess Prowl and I swapped bodies. He's usually the one that can't cope when a plan doesn't go the way he wanted it. Time to adapt and react. Thanks, boss bot."

"So what do you want to do?"

Jazz took a moment to calculate, glaring at the deep, dark pit as if it were laughing at him.

"I need another shuttle. Something smaller and faster."

"And for its crew?"

Jazz's jaw was set. "The Dinobots."

* * *

Prowl kept all external lights off as they traversed deeper through the old tunnels. Blitzangel led the way while he stayed behind her, more concerned whether any enemies were following them. Though they tried to remain as silent as possible, some of the tunnels creaked and groaned under the weight of robots who hadn't walked those corridors for countless millions of years. Rusted metal crinkled under their feet like dry leaves.

Blitzangel suddenly gave a startled cry as she fell. Prowl instantly flipped his headlights back on in alarm to find her on the ground, one leg puncturing the floor. She winced at the bright light in her face.

"Ugh, turn that off! I can't see!" she barked, trying to shield herself with one hand.

The lights flicked off again as Prowl rushed to help her.

"Are you okay?" she heard Prowl's voice close by. Static was still dancing in her optic band, but she felt him grab her shoulders and slowly tug her loose.

Metal squealed as it was scraped together and Blitzangel winced at the sound. Her vision recovered in time to see Prowl crouched in front of her. His hands ran from her thigh down to the ankle, checking it for injuries.

"It's fine, just scratches," she said, brushing both him and particles off her leg.

When she got to her feet just fine, Prowl looked satisfied enough. "We need to be careful, no telling when something will collapse around us."

"That's why I'm the leader," Blitzangel replied with a grin. "You're twice my weight. If you had been the one to find that rust hole I might have had to go spelunking for your carcass."

Prowl did not return her light tone. "I wish you would have stayed in Iacon for this mission."

"So things didn't quite go the way you planned. You and I are still just fine," the femme insisted. "Just watch, you and I are going to stroll right back up to the surface as pretty as you please and we'll just regroup from there."

The second still frowned, checking his radio again. No service down this far. Too many layers of solid matter blocking all signals. "We should still be careful. That kind of optimism can get you killed. We need to be realistic about the situation."

Blitzangel huffed as she started walking again. "Oh, please. I'm the realist, you're the pessimist. Jazz is the optimist."

Prowl's mouth quirked up just a little. "Is that how it is?"

She turned back to grab his wrist and pull him with her. "Yes, that's how it is."  
Prowl allowed her to lead him by the hand for only a few moments before he slipped out of her grip. Though he continued to stay close, he would often turn around to scan behind them for any pursuers. The tunnels continued to seem deserted. The two bots appeared to be the first life forms in these passageways since they had first been abandoned.

Blitzangel paused in her tracks and Prowl almost ran into her during one of his backward sweeps.

"This one's blocked," she stated, eying the solid wall in front of them. "I guess we turn around and try again?"

Prowl stepped in front to inspect the barrier. It wasn't that the tunnel had completely collapsed in their path, there was just a solid wall in front of them. That didn't make sense to him at all.

"No one would just build a wall in the middle of a tunnel. There's an explanation for this." Prowl flicked on his headlights again to get a better view of what deterred them. He pulled out a small energy blade and began chipping away at the thick growth of rust completely covering the area.

Blitzangel stayed back, arms folded. She kept glancing behind her, feeling a little out of sorts now that Prowl wasn't at her back. This place seemed so dead and lifeless at first glance, and yet, she couldn't help but feel that there was some sort of energy down here. It made her wingtips tingle. That familiar sensation triggered memories. She had been down deep in the planet before. It was not the first time she had encountered this feeling. A time with a group of wary seekers entered her mind.

Prowl's sound of triumph returned her attention back to him.

"There's a door here," he announced as he scraped at puffy layer of rust.

Blitzangel moved to help him, eager to continue forward and leave her uneasy feeling behind. She crouched and wedged her agile fingers into the crack. Between the two of them, they managed to force the ancient door open with the loud scream of scraping metal.

"I hope no one heard that," Blitzangel said as she glanced behind her.

"Get in," was all Prowl said in reply.

The threshold actually seemed to be the doorway into a large building. It was industrial in design, not a residence, but a place of business. A place where they used to build. Conveyor belts and long dormant, rotted robotic arms were interred, row by row, in this long forgotten place.

"Looks like an old assembly line," Blitzangel said softly, as if speaking too loudly would cause the dust and ghosts to stir. "I wonder what they built here?" She had a small flashlight in her hand now. It was mostly used to peer inside the darkness of a patient's internal cavity, but it was strong enough to send a concentrated beam to the far wall.

Prowl didn't say anything to answer her question; he was in no mood for conjecture. Still sore about his botched mission, he just wanted to get out and get them to safety.

Blitzangel let out a soft gasp and then "Prowl, look."

Prowl turned to see what her light beam had found. There, slightly disfigured under nests of puffy rust, was a partially completed body hanging from a hook. Robotic guts hung down from the torso like trailed intestines. Blitzangel momentarily thought it reminiscent of a slasher film, then a question came to her.

"Is this how they used to build Cybertronians?" she wondered. "They just mass produced them like this?"

"Not that I am aware of," Prowl said, now observing the body with a fastidious gaze. Despite its macabre appearance, it wasn't a dead body, but one waiting to be completed. "To mass manufacture life is... sparkless. The generation of those who could bring life took great care and pride in their creations. Each was different as each personality is also different. The only robotic mechanisms we mass produced were devices of labor: construction machinery, air shuttles, security sentinels."

But even as he looked over the body, Prowl knew this one was not meant for mere automated labor. The form was too much like his own, though rounded and retro like much older generations, instead of the more modern sharp angles. The form had a face, features; they did not bother with such things if they were just meant as implements of everyday drudgery.

"If someone at some time was trying to mass produce Cybertronians, I don't see the reason for it," Prowl continued. "I also can't imagine Vector Sigma granting life to a cluster of copied designs all at one time. That wasn't what creation was about. I don't understand who would want to do that, or why."

"To make an army," Blitzangel said simply, sending Prowl a small chill. "Megatron has done it himself with his seeker clones."

Prowl gazed at her and then returned his attention back to the pendulous body. "This level is, no doubt, far before even Megatron's time."

"Meaning he wasn't the first to have such an idea."

Prowl had nothing to say to that, but continued to gaze upon the shell thoughtfully while Blitzangel moved on. When he realized she was no longer at his side, he hurried after her, reminding himself they needed to be on the move.

"Check out these control panels," Blitzangel said when he caught up with her. She was standing at a control console overlooking the assembly plant. "It's so short." She squatted down as if sitting in an invisible chair and put her hands up in the position where she would normally find a keyboard. The panel was still quite a bit lower. "I'm not that tall compared to the average size either. Who was running this building? Robot Oompa Loompas?"

Prowl frowned, recognizing that she was using an Earth reference, but not able to look it up without access to her planet's internet. He also didn't much like the fact that this entire building wasn't making sense. It put all his sensibilities on edge when pieces didn't fit exactly how he wanted them to. He also knew they couldn't afford to continue to nose around this place.

"We need to keep going," he said with a guiding hand at her back and urgency in his tone.

They took the hallway leading to the opposite end of the building, hoping to discover an exit.

"The halls are very narrow," Blitzangel continued to point out. Prowl was walking behind her again. If they had been walking side by side, and if Prowl still had his panels, they would have been scraping against the wall. "I don't think Ultra Magnus would be able to fit down here without stooping. Were previous generations of Cybertronians smaller than they are now?"

"I honestly am not sure," Prowl's steady voice sounded behind her. "Like all history, the further back into the past, the less information there is to be found about how life was back then."

"Which is very strange, considering you all have computer brains and you are a very information-oriented people."

"Files still get old and corrupted, or deleted for certain reasons. Political leaders wishing to alter the history of their exploits to portray them in a favoring light. As they say, history is written by the victors. While this current war has been by far the largest and most catastrophic event of our history, it wasn't the only event. I'm afraid we have always been a war-minded people, even in our Golden Age."

Up ahead, their lights flickered to the end of the walkway and to a door that was forever set ajar. Squeezing out of the small opening, the pair found themselves in a wide open world. A vast courtyard sprawled before them, the vestige of a once beautiful city. Now dilapidated sculptures and architecture bore silent witness that once a people lived down here, that at one time they thrived. How beautiful it must have been, these buildings reaching toward the polychromatic sky! Now the sky was a barrier of metal, a silent tomb for a dead city.

"This place is amazing," Blitzangel said in quiet reverence. "Your whole planet is like a history museum. Why did they just build over places like this? Why abandon it, lock it away and never look at it again?"

Prowl, too, was sweeping his exacting gaze over the silent sprawl. "It has always been the nature of our people to look more to the future than the past. We have always built up and out, improving Cybertron, making it bigger, grander. Increasing the circumference of the planet's surface was how we made space for all the newly sparked."

"Why not build downward?" Blizangel wondered out loud as they walked through the decrepit past. "Why the obsession with living on the surface?"

Prowl thought about it, but had no solid answer. "That's just how we are," was all he could offer.

"It almost feels like you keep building out to get away from something," the femme mused.

They followed the uneven pathway in search of a way out. Blitzangel turned a corner and squeaked, stumbling back in startled surprise. Prowl was instantly in front of her, weapon drawn protectively. But there was no danger, no one there. No one living, anyway.

Blitzangel stayed behind the black and white Autobot, merely because the sheer sight of what she had discovered disturbed her. "What... is it?"

Prowl's optics flickered several times in complete perplexity. His files could not find a match for the corpse at his feet. "I...I have no idea."

By all visual evidence, the entire body comprised merely an egg-shaped head. It was quite large for a head. It would have gone up to their knees if propped upright. The face was not Cybertronian in design, but highly stylized into a grotesque expression.

What Prowl found the most disturbing was the evidence of organic material. While the thing didn't seem to have limbs to provide it motion, there were the desiccated remnants of several tentacles coming from the orb-like body. This half metal, half flesh creature was not in any of Prowl's databanks. Where did such a thing come from and what had it been doing on Cybertron?

"Look, is that writing?" Blitzangel asked as her tiny light scraped over the wall next to the corpse.

Prowl shined his light. There were foreign characters burned into the metal. The last words of a dying life form. There were burn marks in the body; Prowl noticed them now. Who had killed this poor creature? And why?

"Do you know what kind of language that is, Prowl?"

He returned his attention back to the marks on the wall, trying to match them to anything in his records. "It looks as though it's a form of ancient Cybertronian."

The femme was intrigued. "What does it say?"

"I'm not entirely certain. The language is difficult to decipher."

She smirked at him. "Really, with all the random knowledge you have, Prowl, I would think you'd take the time to learn the language of your planet's history."

"It isn't quite like that. Ancient Cybertronian was a constantly progressive language. Many of our scientists believe that much like organic species, we had a period of evolution. A time where we grew in intelligence and understanding, where we developed our technology and our alt modes, and where we perfected our language into what it is today.

"Because the grammatical constituents were constantly changing, only erudite scholars on the subject are able to translate our most ancient texts. I can read more recent versions of the language. The older it is, the more difficult it is to decipher."

"I think I've actually seen this kind of writing before," Blitzangel admitted.

"Really," Prowl said in a doubtful tone. "And where, pray tell, was that?"

"It wasn't on Cybertron, it was out when I was running around with Drift. I saw a lot of different writing though. Maybe I'm wrong. I just thought it looked familiar."

Prowl frowned minutely at the mention of the neutral, but didn't comment.

Blitzangel decided to snap a digital still of the scene. Maybe Drift could help her confirm if such writing had shown up in their travels. "Can you figure out any of it?" she then asked, full of curiosity.

Prowl studied it for several moments, attempting to see what sense he could make of it with his limited knowledge. "I'm sure this is nowhere near accurate, but the best I can figure, it says 'I will become alive.' Or maybe 'I am still alive.' I could be completely incorrect."

Blitzangel shivered involuntarily from the message. I am still alive. The last words of a dying creature. Though its appearance was disturbing to her, this creature was intelligent and it obviously died alone. Even though it happened millions of years ago, she still felt pity for it.

Prowl had taken a few stills of the scene as well, but he was getting antsy. They couldn't afford to linger.

"Let's move on," Blitzangel said first, arms around herself as if she were cold. There was something about the place that gave her the chills.

The way she hunched brought out a protective surge in Prowl. This place wasn't any good for her. The same went for this entire mission. He needed to get her home.

They continued for a while, feeling like intruders in the silent, ancient world. Blitzangel felt like even their voices would offend the history of this place. According to Prowl, it was so old it had heard an entirely different language from their own.

Prowl, however, had given no consideration to the history of their surroundings. His first thought was keeping Blitzangel safe. Then he wondered about her emotional well-being. Next his mental process ran back to their earlier discussion, and it still perturbed him to think about it.

"Back then," he announced without preamble, "you said you kept getting angry on my behalf."

"Yeah," she simply agreed.

"I don't know if I believe that your stance on the situation has nothing to do with your own feelings about Nightshade and I."

Blitzangel huffed heavily, though she continued to trudge forward. "Really Prowl? Here? Now? You want to keep harping on this now?"

"I'm sorry, I'm having a hard time understanding your thought process on this. I wish to discuss it. If not here, then when we get home."

"No, you want to keep arguing about it," she shot back, "just because you don't agree with my opinion."

"I just want to know what it is you have against Nightshade. It feels like you have engendered an aversion to her for no logical reason."

Blitzangel suddenly paused in her steps and whirled to face him. Prowl was almost nose to nose with her before he put on the brakes.

"She takes advantage of you, that's why I don't like her," she said in his face. "She uses your blind infatuation to get what she wants."

"There's nothing wrong with caring about someone and wanting them to have all you can give them," Prowl argued. "I do the same for you. I have done everything in my power to make sure you're comfortable, taken care of. Aren't you using me, too? How is she different from you?"

"Because I actually _love_ you, you big-" Blitzangel cut herself off. "You know what? I don't care anymore. You can make your own decisions. Do whatever you want Prowl, just leave me out of it. If you think the problem is me, then stop involving me. I will stay out of your life."

Prowl never really understood the human saying about having a gut feeling. But now he was having a physical response to this. Not in his spark, but something lower. His sensibilities were telling him Blitzangel's statement was so far away from what he wanted that he had better reconsider where he was going with this or she would be out of his life. That thought almost scared him. He suddenly realized that he did not want his future without Blitzangel in it and the revelation was startling.

As he wrestled with his thoughts, Blitzangel's head swung around. Something caught her sensitive hearing: movement.

"Well, look at this," a female voice resounded above their heads.

On top of an abstract sculpture, a red visor glistened in the dark. Blitzangel recognized that head shape, that manic, merciless grin.

"Catscratch," she hissed.

Other pairs of red optics appeared behind her, bodies crouched on top of various buildings. Female Decepticons. Prowl reached for his weapon, suddenly feeling as if they had just stepped into a hornet's nest.

"If it isn't our little traitor. In the company of an Autobot, no less," Catscratch purred. "How do you keep surviving? Primus must have himself one sick sense of humor."

There was hatred in the rust-colored Decepti-femme's voice and Blitzangel knew that talking back would do no good. Catscratch was holding a grudge from the last time they met. Blitzangel had sliced her head clean off. She idly wondered how long it had taken to put the Decepti-femme back together. At the same time, Blitzangel was searching the other silhouettes for someone familiar. She would rather have spoken with Darkstar if she were anywhere around. But it didn't seem the second in command was in this group.

Prowl was standing in front of Blitzangel, weapon aimed and primed. They were vastly outnumbered and lost, the odds didn't look good and he wasn't sure how he could keep his friend safe from all of this. Slowly, he tried to back them away from the enemy, to disappear into the darkness.

"And where do you think you're going?" Catscratch called, irritated they weren't bantering with her.

"We don't want any trouble," Prowl said evenly.

"Of course you don't," one of the femmes sang from the darkness, "because you'll lose."

Several voices joined her in laughing. It was not a pleasant sound. Prowl felt his spark sink. How was he supposed to get them out of here alive? Blitzangel was counting on him to protect her.

"I count maybe eight in all," Blitzangel's soft voice radiated in his audial. "Plus Catscratch. Stay away from her, she's dangerous. If they're not going to let us leave, we'll have to render them inactive. Please don't kill any of them if you can help it."

Her voice was calm and confident. For a moment, Prowl still thought he had his little Crystal with him, brave and trained for fights in the ring, but not for war. So many times had he horrified himself with mental thoughts of the enemy tearing her apart. But this wasn't his Crystal any longer. Blitzangel was cool and competent. She had been though certain things Prowl would never have wished for her, but had gained more experience and confidence than she would ever have earned otherwise.

Blitzangel snapped out her blades and he flinched a little at the unfamiliar sound.

Before Prowl could issue any orders, there was a scream of engines as Blitzangel tore into the air after the femmes. At first, they were startled by the frontal attack, but soon laser fire lit up the darkness.

Prowl did his best to provide cover fire. It was all he could do, being stuck on the ground. The first sounds of energy blades hitting something solid could be heard above the din and a femme fell from the roof. Prowl rushed to the fallen enemy, landing a solid hit to her processor that would knock her out for quite some time. He did not relish hitting a femme of any faction, but this was a desperate situation.

As soon as the first femme fell unconscious, another femme dropped down in front of him: the leader of the team, Catscratch. She didn't have anything to say to an Autobot mech, but she still grinned at him before she attacked.

On the building above, Blitzangel disabled two more femmes, rendering them immobile but conscious with her blades and medical knowledge. The Decepti-femmes were reeling from surprise. They thought they knew the wayward femme, who had been quiet and confused when she was taken to their lair. Little did they know how much Blitzangel had learned about combat since then. And it was all thanks to what the female Decepticons had done to their Autobot counterparts in revenge.

But now it was Blitzangel's turn to be surprised as two more Decepti-femmes landed on either side of her. They were svelte in form and painfully familiar. Blitzangel couldn't help but drop her guard a little.

"Dice, Domino," she said in a suddenly gentle voice.

The twins glared at her in unison.

"Welcome back."

"Traitor," each took their turn to spit at her. The hurt was clear in their voices.  
"I'm sorry," Blitzangel told them. "I really am, but I had to do what I felt was right."

The twins stared at her with confusion on their faces, as if such a concept could not even exist in their world.

"We saved you," Dice insisted.

"We took you into our home," Domino added.

"You owed us your loyalty," they said together.

Blitzangel was filled with regret. "I like you both very much. I am grateful for your friendship when I was lost and confused. But you don't get to dictate my allegiance. My loyalties are with my family."

Dice mouthed the word with incredulity. Domino growled.

"If not with us, you are the enemy."

The two attacked in tandem, rushing her on either side. They were nimble and quick, energy blades in their hands. The twins were used to being a team. They attacked as one, causing their adversary to immediately go on the defensive from the volley of blades. Blitzangel let them put her on the retreat, struggling to block them each time. They were good. As a team, they were nearly unbeatable and maybe, if she'd had this battle with the twins the last time they met, they would have killed her.

But Blitzangel had learned much since then. She had seen many more one-on-one battles. And she'd had a teacher, one who also preferred using blades. One who was far deadlier than either of these femmes. Drift had taught her to be patient, to learn the pace of her attacker. Once she had figured out their rhythm, Blitzangel pushed back.

She plunged her energy blades in darkness and then powered them to full intensity, momentarily blinding the sisters. They were fast and they were strong, but Blitzangel could hit so much harder. With a few slices and a well-placed kick, Domino was sliding across the roof. Startled by being parted from her sister, it wasn't difficult to send Dice to join her. Blitzangel was on them instantly, cutting only a few wires to render their processors unable to control their limbs.

She heard movement behind her and Blitzangel grabbed one of the twins' discarded blades and threw it as she turned around. The blade embedded in the abdomen another Decepti-femme. Both she and the Decepti-femme with her stared at the entry point as an alarming amount of fluid began to leak out.

"You'd better help her," Blitzangel told the unwounded femme. "If you don't stop that leak, she's going to bleed out."

The femme glanced from Blitzangel to her bleeding sister and made a choice, rushing to her fellow's aid.

Blitzangel glanced at the dark world around her with her night vision. From her bird's eye view, she noticed a tunnel that seemed likely to lead out of the entombed city. Below her, she also witnessed Prowl's stand against three different femmes. He had managed to damage the arm of one of the femmes. Another Decepti-femme was still shooting at him.

And there was Catscratch. Prowl was firing, dodging and lunging where he could to avoid those deadly tendrils of hers. The sight frightened Blitzangel to the core. Prowl was an intelligent, accomplished fighter, but one scratch from the poisonous femme could kill him. Unlike Blitzangel, Prowl had a spark. He was vulnerable to Catscratch's virus.

With a growl of engines, Blitzangel dove from the building, landing right on the femme's back like a pouncing feline. Catscratch shrieked at the unwanted contact, her tendrils flailing everywhere, almost hitting one of her own. Blitzangel slashed at the larger femme's back and shoulders in a shower of sparks.

Prowl surged in, incapacitating the other femmes and then rushing to help.

"Prowl, don't touch her!" Blitzangel warned, but the second wasn't listening.

In her own burst of desperation, she reached forward, trying to slash at the deadly tendrils before they had the chance to inflict damage. One of her blades hit its target and Catscratch squalled at an even higher pitch as her nearly-severed tendril spattered liquids everywhere.

"Angel, let's go," Prowl barked in a tone that begged no second guessing.

The purple femme rebounded off of the screaming body and Prowl fired at the sculpture behind Catscratch. Large pieces of debris fell around her and the Decepti-femme had to stumble away before she was squished.

Prowl and Blitzangel fled the scene on foot, shrill oaths scraping at their backs.

"I think I saw a way out," Blitzangel said, taking the lead.

They reached the wall of the metal dome and, indeed, there was a tunnel leading out. Prowl hastily set some small charges all around the exit, hastening them both inside. The tunnel collapsed behind them, blocking the passage of any enemy with the mind to pursue. But the duo continued to race on. They didn't stop running until everything was left far behind them.

Blitzangel was faster on legs than the Autobot mech. When she felt him getting too far behind, she finally put on the brakes to check on him.

Still, Prowl beat her to the obvious question. "Are you okay?" he asked as he caught up with her.

"Me?" she shot back. "Are _you_ okay? Did she get you anywhere? I told you to watch out for Catscratch." She was already fishing for her small light to examine him.

"I appreciate the concern, but I'm fine," Prowl insisted, shielding his optics as her light beam swept over his form. "I was more concerned she got you again. You were in closer combat."

"No, she didn't. But it doesn't matter. I could live through another cut from her, but you can't. I'm going to do a full body inspection just to make sure."

She grabbed his arm, but he jerked away. "It isn't necessary. I'm fine."

Blitzangel put a hand on her hip. "I know you read the reports. Don't even pretend you aren't aware of how deadly this femme's virus is. If there's even the slightest bit of it in your system it WILL kill you. It will eat your spark from the inside out. You need to let me look at you."

Prowl frowned to show his disagreement with the treatment, but acquiesced to the inspection. Blitzangel put the tiny flashlight in her mouth- a very human action, Prowl thought- as she looked him over piece by piece.

"What's this?" she asked, finding a mark she didn't like on the underside of his right arm. There was a curious residue around the cut. Blitzangel was frowning.

"It's just a surface cut. It didn't even go through the armor," Prowl said.

"Either way, we can't take chances. I'm going to remove it."

Prowl stared at her. "Remove... my entire arm?"

Blitzangel had put on a somber business face. not unlike expressions he had often seen on Ratchet. "Can't take the risk."

"I'll need that arm if we run into more Decepticons."

"You'll also need to be alive, Prowl."

The mech was frustrated. This was so new to him. He wasn't used to being told what to do. He wasn't used to being the liability.

"Shut down all functions to that arm," she ordered as she removed the surface armor.

The bare skeleton of where the joint met the body was exposed and Blitzangel powered up her arm blades.

"Brace yourself."

Prowl stiffened at the first blow. It made a sickening, heavy sound that vibrated through his entire body. Another hit, and another. It took several slices before the thick metal was finally severed and the useless limb fell dead to the ground. The femme rushed in to solder wires and staunch all bleeding. Prowl felt off balance without his arm. It made the energon in his tank begin to roil.

Thin arms hugged his neck from behind. "You'll be okay," she said gently. "We've just got to get up high enough to get a radio signal and then we'll be out of here."

As silly as it sounded, those simple words steadied him. Her arms helped the sickness to settle. Prowl found himself drifting back to their last conversation. What would he do if they stopped talking to each other? He found the possibility unacceptable.

"Come on." She tugged gently on his remaining arm. "Let's keep going. Let me know if you start feeling any changes in your health, okay?"

"I'll be fine," he assured her. As soon as he got back to base and was put back together he would be just fine.

The two traversed in silence for a while, opting for any tunnel they came upon that seemed to slope upward. As best Prowl could calculate, they had ascended a few levels by now, but they were still miles away from reaching a level where their radio signal could penetrate the surface. Their lack of progress was disconcerting, but Prowl kept it to himself. No matter how long it took, he told himself he could hold out until they reached topside.

Blitzangel froze in her tracks and flicked her flashlight above her, revealing a vertical tube above her head.

"Pay dirt!" she announced. "I wonder how high it goes?"

Prowl inspected it himself. "Could you fly both of us up there?"

"It depends on how far it is and how much you weigh. I could make it up there no problem. But the more weight I carry, the faster it burns up my fuel." She grinned at him. "Maybe if I cut off all your limbs you would be light enough."

He frowned at her. "I don't appreciate your attempt at humor right now. Maybe if you flew up there alone we could calculate how high it goes. Or you may be able to get an SOS out. I will stay-"

"Um, Prowl?" Blitzangel cut him off, worry in her voice. "What's wrong with your optics?"

In the darkness, one of them was flickering. Just before his vision went, his neural net was peppered with system failures all across the board.

"Prowl!" Blitzangel cried when his optics went black. The mech stumbled and she rushed to catch him, setting him down on the ground. "No! No, no, no, no, no..." she panicked as she began ripping off his chest armor in order to get to his vital circuits.

"I can't see," Prowl said in a detached voice. Energon began leaking out of the side of his mouth.

"Just stay with me, okay? You'll be fine, just hold on." Blitzangel tried to keep her voice steady, but it was breaking.

She exposed Prowl's central relays and began to run a diagnosis. Everything was shutting down. The Catscratch Virus had still made it inside his system. It was slowly eating him up piece by piece.

Blitzangel sat back on her heels, shaking and overwhelmed with fear. She knew how to fix physical injuries, but viruses were far beyond her understanding. Especially something like this. Even if she were to fly up right now to get help, by the time they got the mech's body back to Iacon, the venom would have consumed his spark. Prowl was going to die and she was useless to save him.

"How long do I have?" Prowl asked knowingly, his voice so very calm. Blitzangel couldn't believe how composed he was. For some reason, that just scared her more.

"I don't know, a few minutes maybe." Her pump was beating so fast. She couldn't handle this; it was too much to take. "Prowl, I don't know what to do. I can't DO anything for you! It's going to reach your spark and I can't-" She recalled Catscratch telling her what a horribly painful process it was to die while the virus slowly consumed one's spark. How could she sit here and watch him die that way? She just wanted to fall apart and cry.

"It will be okay," Prowl said and she found herself hating him for being the calm one. "This isn't your fault. Just go and find help. I will hold on as long as I can."

Blitzangel felt pained at the notion of leaving him all the way down there alone. How could she abandon his side at a time like this? How could she leave while his spark was exposed to such a disease? Why couldn't she protect it?

Then, she suddenly had an idea. A horribly crazy idea. Prowl would argue and waste precious seconds. So she wordlessly grabbed his surprised helm, pushing it back to expose the neck. With a crackle of energy, she let her blade swing.

* * *

Jazz watched with ever fading patience as the backup shuttle finally came into view. It was no good. They had taken too much time to get there. Any rescue efforts could be futile by now. As the shuttle touched down, he prayed his friends were able to hold out until the reinforcements arrived. They better not be harmed. He and the Dinobots were going to rip that place apart.

Before the passengers could even disembark, the Autobots heard a very distinct sound in the distance. The scream of a particular set of jet engines at full throttle. Only one femme's alt mode could make such a noise.

"Angel!" Jazz cried.

The twinkling of her afterburners was too far in the distance to even make out her silhouette. That tiny light was jetting at maximum speed toward Iacon. But where was Prowl?

Jazz jumped back on the radio, trying to figure out what was going on.

* * *

Up at Iacon tower, the entire watchtower staff were on the edge of their seats, waiting to hear from the first team still out in the field. When they were trying to confirm a touchdown for Gimlock's shuttle, a completely new radio signal cut through it all.

"This... Blitzangel, calling Iacon tower. ... emergency." Her voice kept cutting out- not from radio interference, but from a problem with her own vocalizer. Her tone sounded stressed, in pain. "... coming in fast... need Ratchet to... meet me."

Kup was at the main console and wasn't quite in the mood to immediately jump to the femme's tune. "He may be busy, but we'll send out the nearest available medic to meet you."  
"YOU GET RATCHET RIGHT NOW! THIS IS LIFE OR DEATH!"

"Now you see here. If this is an emergency, you'll take the nearest medic I can-"

"Do it," Optimus Prime cut him off, urgency in his voice. "Get Ratchet up there now. Tell him it's Blitzangel." The Autobot commander was already racing out the door himself, leaving a stunned Kup with nothing else to do but follow orders.

* * *

Ratchet and Optimus both were waiting on the main landing pad of the tower. They could see the light of Blitzangel's thrusters in the distance, drawing closer as her engines screamed as they were pushed to their limit.

Ratchet was fidgeting, processor whirring at a million miles an hour trying to figure out what could possibly be wrong. What sort of damage had the femme incurred? He had no other information aside from the femme's needing him. Not knowing was driving him crazy.

"She's going to blow herself up if she doesn't ease up on the throttle," the medic frowned.

"She isn't coming in very steady," Optimus said.

As the femme neared the city, her wings teetered. She flew like a drunken moth, nearly clipping herself on the city wall as she fought to keep altitude. A few loitering Autobots had to scramble out of the way as the black jet crashed onto the landing pad. Blitzangel was already transforming into root mode before she hit, as if she had no control over it. Her transformation stalled in the middle as she collided. Stuck halfway in between modes, her mishmash of body parts rolled to a painful stop. Chest, arms and head were now visible as she spasmed in pain at the mech's feet.

Ratchet rushed over to her, eyes wide at the uncontrollable tremors in her body. She seemed to have lost all control of her functions.

"Blitzangel, what happened? What's wrong?"

The femme dumped a handful of computer chips at his feet and was now clutching her chest, whimpering as if she were burning up from the inside.

"Get.. get it out!" she cried through a clenched jaw. "GET IT OUT OF ME!"

Before Ratchet could ask what she was talking about, her chest cavity opened. The medic stared with wide optics as she revealed a glowing blue spark, quivering and pulsating strongly inside her.

* * *

He was alive, and that was the extent of his knowledge. He could not access his body, not even his intelligence logs. There were no memories, no protocol, no diagnostic reports. There was just his very being, swimming in the essence of his whole self. There was no past or future, just what he was at his core. He existed in the present only. What was now was all he could comprehend, and now was nothing but darkness and his spark. But he was content to be himself, to be now, and he did not want for anything.

A flicker of something suddenly had his full attention. Light, pictures. He saw the movements of bodies, flashes of write and red. The lower half of a frowning face. Then darkness again. Without any sort of information storage device, the spark soon forgot it had happened at all. He was back in his black void, content once more, forever patient.

Indeterminate time passed and the spark felt another surge. Something plugged into him and the spark shivered with pure joy as he accessed an abundance of information. It was all so clear now. He wasn't just him, he was Prowl. He had a life, a memory. It surged forward in a flood of faces and emotions: his history; his brothers, friends and enemies; his training; his job. Everything that had built him over the span of his life was now his again and the spark wondered how he ever could have been content with so little when he had so much.

His vision returned once more with a flash of brilliance. There was the whole world again, splayed out before him. He could see the room, see the medic hovering over him with optic ridges furrowed in concentration. How wonderful to have his senses return. How wonderful to see!

"Oh, there we go," Ratchet announced, his worried brow disappearing when he noticed Prowl looking around the room. "How's your visual? Can you see me okay?"

"Visual status is fine, Ratchet," Prowl responded calmly. His voice sounded strangely far away, as if it weren't coming from him. "It's a very clear picture."

The medic seemed pleased with that response. "Visual feedback working fine, can recognize others," he mumbled as he scribbled on a data pad. "Do you remember your designation?"

"Prowl."

"Do you know where you are?"

"I'm assuming the medical wing at Iacon tower."

"What is your current station?"

"Second in command of the Autobots under Optimus Prime."

"Do you recall what planet you were on before returning to Cybertron?"

"An organic planet known as Earth by locals. Comprised of 71% water, world population estimated at 7 billion."

"Excellent. It seems all of your memory is intact; that's good." Ratchet took the time to jot down a few more notes.

Prowl looked around some more. He was nearly at eye level with Ratchet, but how was that? Was he sitting up? Shouldn't he be lying down if he just woke up in the med bay? And for that matter, exactly what _was_ his body doing? He found with a growing panic that he could not attest to the location of any of his limbs. Nor could he access his internal diagnostics. Something was very, very wrong.

"Ratchet," he said, trying to keep the urgency out of his voice. "What has happened to my body? Why can't I feel it?"

The medic slowly raised his gaze, stylus pressing at his lower lip. "Well, that's the thing, Prowl," he said frankly. "You don't have one right now."

"I don't... what?" came the flat response.

"Your body's gone, my friend. The Catscratch Virus took it over. It's useless now."

"Then how am I here, talking to you?"

"Blitzangel removed your spark before the virus could affect it. She was also smart enough to salvage your personality and memory files. Without those, everything you used to be would have been gone. You would have been as blank as a new sparkling."

Though without a physical form, Prowl still felt the weight of that revelation. He would have forgotten everything, everyone that mattered to him. He almost would have preferred a real death as opposed to losing so much and starting all over.

"Right now, I have your spark in a very safe storage unit that will sustain it until I can build you something more suitable," Ratchet went on. "After making sure everything else was clean from the virus, Perceptor and I plugged in your memory hard drive and personality components. The reason you and I can interact is that you're also currently connected to a camera and microphone."

Prowl remained silent as he processed this. He was now reduced to a spark and a camera. What did this mean for him? Would he lose his station? Was he done being useful to anyone? Was the wondrous privilege of just being mobile now lost to him forever?

"What... is going to happen to me now?" This time he couldn't keep the worry from his tone.

Ratchet gave him a confident smile as he leaned forward, elbow on the table. "Well, it just so happens, Prowl, that I went to med school for the sole purpose of learning how to build a spark-housing protoform from scratch. So this current arrangement is just something you'll have to tolerate for the time being."

Relief flooded into the spark. "I see. I suppose that is acceptable. How is Blitzangel?"

"She was a little glitchy at first, but she's been recovering okay."

"Recovering? From what?"

"She carried your spark in her chest cavity to get you here, Prowl. When a spark is housed in a body, its first instinct is to take control of that body. That's how a spark functions. But Blitzangel isn't a blank protoform. Your spark was attempting to rewrite her programming to conform to yours as soon as she started carrying you. She was a bit of a mess by the time she crash-landed at the tower."

"But she'll be okay?"

"She's been repaired physically and nothing was permanently erased, but she's been rather maudlin since then. She's worried about you."

Prowl said nothing.

"I'll tell her that her impromptu experiment was a success and there was no permanent damage," Ratchet continued. "I'm assuming you don't really want visitors in this condition."

"Wait," Prowl said when Ratchet moved to get up. The CMO paused with a curious look. "Give me a moment to process all this and then... I think I will see her."

* * *

Jazz was the first one to step in, his hand around Blitzangel's as she followed silently after him. The camera that was Prowl's doorway to the outside world zeroed in on her, noticing how wilted she seemed. Nothing like the femme who had been barking orders at him and chopping off limbs hours before. Jazz seemed to be her source of strength. She was practically leaning on him when they paused inside the room.

Prowl had to wonder how long Jazz had been with her, touching her hand, consoling her.

Ratchet mumbled something softly to them that Prowl couldn't hear. The microphone wasn't quite as sensitive as his original hearing. Then the two came over to sit in the chairs placed in front of the camera.

"Hey buddy, how ya feeling?" Jazz asked, forcing lightness in his tone as he sat down.

"I've been better," Prowl said frankly.

Jazz barked out a laugh. "To say the least! It's good to hear your voice though, Prowl. There was a time when I thought we were going to lose you for good."

Blitzangel now had both hands covering her face, her shoulders shaking. It caught Prowl's attention instantly, the camera panning over to her.

"Angel..."

"I'm sorry!" she blurted out, her voice cracking. "I should have tried harder! I should have been smarter! Look what I did to you! I'm so sorry, Prowl. I'm so, so sorry." She barely got the last sentence out as a choked whisper.

The whole experience had been emotionally scarring for her. As tough and strong as she had tried to be about it, as much as she had tried to remove herself emotionally from the situation, it still got to her. To shut down Prowl's systems the fastest way possible, she had to slice off his head. Then she tore through his helm and through his body to get the components she needed. It wasn't just the body of a robot, it was her friend, someone she had grown to care about. She had ripped him apart and left that familiar form in pieces down in the darkness. Every time she thought about it, it made her want to throw up.

"You did the right thing," Prowl said gently.

"Yes, you did," Ratchet insisted behind her with more force. "There was nothing else even I could have done in that situation. In fact, you would have been the only one on the entire planet able to house his spark in your own body and keep it alive long enough to reach Iacon. Without a proper containment unit, Prowl's spark would have gone out in my hands before we ever got there." He put a hand on her shoulder. "You were the right bot in the right place at the right time."

The femme nodded and she slowly vented out some air. It appeared she had been trying to convince herself of that for a while.

"You saved my life," Prowl insisted.

"Yeah, and this whole thing isn't permanent," Jazz jumped in as he motioned to the camera. "Prowl will be back out there on two legs in no time, right Doc?"

"I am putting every capable hand on this project," Ratchet confirmed. "Provided there is no major medical emergency in the near future, I hope to have the protoform built within a week."

Even though he already knew this information, it was reassuring to hear it again. Prowl would happily listen to it as many times as Ratchet wanted to tell him. It was frightening to be in this condition, completely helpless. He could watch, he could speak, but he couldn't physically interact with anyone. Right now, the camera that was his window to the outside world was focused on those dainty black hands that were fidgeting with worry. How he wished he could hold her hands, hold her, and be by her side.

"Everything will be okay, Angel. This is just temporary." Prowl spoke so softly, softer than he ever had before.

She nodded silently.

"Though I hope you can do something for me. While I am indisposed, I will need you to care care of Jazz. He doesn't look it, but this is very hard on him. I need you to stay close by in case he needs you."

Blitzangel had to laugh despite her melancholy. She knew what he was doing. He meant for his fellow second to be his surrogate until Prowl's body was rebuilt. Feeling lighter, she reached over to hug Jazz around the neck. His arm instantly went around her shoulder to pull her in. "You got it, Prowl. I'll take care of him for you. And if you need anything, let me know. I'll come visit you if you want."

"No, thank you. I would rather not have further company while I'm... like this. If Optimus Prime thinks I can be of use despite my current state, I will do what I can. But other than that..."

"You just want time to pout," Jazz accused.

"I want some time to think about things."

"The offer still stands," Blitzangel insisted.

The camera focused on her and her weak but brave smile.

"I understand. It is appreciated."

* * *

Despite her earlier promise to keep close to Jazz, Blitzangel had allowed him to leave her side so he could take care of important matters. He would be doing the work of both himself and Prowl until his fellow second recovered. Blitzangel also wanted to take some time to think herself. She hadn't had a moment alone since she woke up in the med bay. Jazz had been hovering over her ever since. It certainly didn't help that she had been such a baby the entire time. Right now, she just wanted to get herself together without Jazz's helicopter mode distracting her.

Blitzangel walked herself into the main courtyard, willing the claustrophobia to pass. It still felt like she was down there in those tiny tunnels. She ached for the sky, but she didn't want to fly anywhere. Being in the air in jet mode didn't grant her the same freedom as it did on Earth. Everything was monitored here. Any time she flew away from the city she would have to ask for permission to fly back. It was maddening and ripped all the joy out of it.

But out in the courtyard, she did feel a little better. The space was wide open and not too crowded. The sky was exposed above her and it felt like that was enough to calm her down. A sense of normalcy set in as other bots moved around her, attending to their business. Out here, standing alone and gathering herself, she began to feel a little better.

"Hm, you get out much better shape than Prowl, I think," said a deep voice next to her.

Blitzangel jumped back in surprise. She had been aware there was a large body nearby, but there always was with so many bots moving around. She didn't expect this one to start talking to her. She got her second jolt when she realized the unfamiliar form was someone she knew.

"Grimlock! You surprised me."

He was in his robot mode, not really the form Blitzangel was used to. It wasn't the mode Grimlock was used to either. But Optimus Prime had insisted the Dinobots remain in root mode while in the city. Their dinosaur states were not only clumsy, but they unnerved many of Iacon's denizens. The Autobots were still getting used to quite a few new things that had appeared in their city of late.

"Me Grimlock not even try to be sneaky. You Angel been thinking too hard."

"Yeah well, there's been a lot to think about," she sighed.

"They send us Dinobots out to fight Decepticon femmes. Go to save you. But then you save yourselves and they don't let us fight anybody."

The right side of Blitzangel's mouth pulled up. "Sorry about that."

"Me Grimlock eager to tear up core of Cybertron, too."

"Maybe next time."

"Me Grimlock hear you kill Prowl and save Prowl at same time. Me very impressed."

She sighed once more, arms wrapping around herself. "And I don't ever want to do it again."

"Angel not happy she save Prowl?"

"No, it's not that. I just wish he hadn't needed saving in the first place. I'm sure he wishes that, too." She rubbed her face. _And I just wish there was something left of him I could hold. I feel like I don't have him back yet. _"It was just a rough day all around."

Blitzangel then noticed two femmes loitering in the courtyard, talking to each other in hushed tones with judgmental faces. It was very possible she was the subject of their conversation for when she looked their way, they instantly stopped their gossip and pretended to be interested elsewhere. Blitzangel couldn't bring herself to care. She didn't have the fortitude to put up with such things right now.

Grimlock noticed them as well. He transformed into dinosaur mode and glared back at them, teeth bared. The femmes hastily skittered away and Blitzangel couldn't help but find a little entertainment in their retreat. Grimlock seemed to enjoy watching them run away as well. Then he turned back to the femme and she placed a dainty hand on his snout.

"Now there's the face I'm used to." She cupped his nose, rubbing her cheek over the top of his muzzle. Grimlock rumbled deep in his chest, a sound as reassuring as a cat purr.

"I told you, no dinosaur mode in the city," came a patient voice.

Blitzangel glanced over to see Optimus Prime standing before them, arms crossed over his chest. Grimlock's rumble now sounded slightly annoyed.

"What a horrible rule," the femme said softly. "How can you deny everyone this adorable face?"

"You are the only one who thinks it's adorable," Optimus responded. "His dinosaur mode intimidates everyone else."

"Not his fault he was built that way. Everyone else should just get used to it."

Optimus didn't say anything to that, but Grimlock did raise his head and return himself to root mode.

Blitzangel stood before the Autobot leader, rubbing her arms, still waiting for the Prime to say something. When he didn't, she decided he was waiting for her.

"So, what are you going to do about the shuttle and the femmes?"

Optimus's broad stance deflated a bit. "I don't know," he sighed. "They played us for fools and nearly killed our second, but we have nothing to gain and even more resources to lose if we go after them now."

Blitzangel nodded in agreement. "It's not like their lives are exactly trouble-free anyway." She glanced out past the city walls. "They may still get what's coming to them, yet."

Again, the Prime said nothing. He was so very good at expressing his thoughts on the conversation without saying a word. After gazing in the same direction himself for a spell, he turned as if to leave.

"Actually, Optimus," the purple femme quickly said to catch his attention. "I was hoping I could have some time to talk to you." Then she spoke the words Optimus never expected her to say: "I've come to a decision. I want to be an official Autobot."

* * *

Far above them, out among the luminaries and the space debris, a trio of objects jetted through the blackness. Up ahead, the metallic surface of Cybertron glittered like a jewel. As they neared the planet, they could make out its tall, electric spires and the blackness zones where war had ravaged the land of energy.

"Well, well, well. Look what we found."

Sunstorm smiled as he paused to admire Cybertron in all her battered glory. Little did it know, the worst was yet to come.


	24. Chapter 24: Behind Enemy Lines

Author's Notes: Thanks everyone for patiently waiting. I had to put the writing on hold to get ready for Botcon. But now that it's over, I'm excited to get back to work. This one was quite a difficult task to get through. I hope you enjoy it.

Rising Generations  
Chapter 24: Behind Enemy Lines

The shadowed territory loomed for miles in all directions. Darkmount's jutting black spires pierced the sky, seeming to serve as a conduit, sucking the negative light from space and spreading shadows throughout its borders. Normally, all the surrounding constructs of the Decepticon city glittered with lights and buzzed with seekers, like bees minding a hive. Lately, the stronghold had been very quiet.

Nightbeat took one last survey before turning off the spy scope and letting it sink back down below the surface. His was a perilous station. Far behind enemy lines, he and his two teammates would be killed if they were ever discovered. But their job was important. Sequestered below the surface of Decepticon territory, Nightbeat's mission was to inform the Autobots in advance of Decepticon activity.

Unfortunately, information gathered by the secret team when Megatron viciously eviscerated one of the Autobot outposts did not come soon enough. Nightbeat reported in if it looked like the Decepticons were readying to deploy, but he had no inside intel about destination or intention when the enemy set out. All he could do was sound the alarm and tell his fellow Autobots to be at the ready.

It used to be easier to sneak deeper into the stronghold to gather inside information, before Megatron came back. Shockwave wasn't nearly as talented at catching their bugs. But then again, he also wasn't up to much more than the trading of goods and weapons. Megatron's return changed everything. With Soundwave now prowling the corridors of Darkmount, everything was discovered, all communications within the territory were monitored and anything unidentifiable was blocked.

Now, information was sent on a data stick with a runner to carry it through the underground tunnels back to Iacon. Though there wasn't much new to report after the outpost attack. Megatron and most of his heavy hitters still occupied their newly won outpost. The word through the grapevine was that they were digging for something. But that wasn't Nightbeat's territory. He was keeping an eye on Darkmount.

So far, there was nothing new to report on his end. Nightbeat pulled out his data pad, marking the date and stating the lack of activity. He was about to chalk it up as another uneventful day when the very walls around their tiny station rumbled and shook.

"What's going on?" Nightbeat heard from the Autobot stumbling behind him. He scrambled for the spy scope. Something was happening on the surface, something big.

The visual flickered on and Nightbeat was treated to a bright display of fire and smoke. Darkmount tower was engulfed in flames, something large sticking out of the spire. Another explosion shook the ground and the tip of the tower whined as it began to topple over. Decepticons scattered everywhere, like an uprooted ant hill.

"Sweet Primus," Nightbeat whispered. He needed to get this information to Smokescreen.

* * *

The time for attack was almost at hand. At the very edge of Autobot territory, Megatron and his soldiers toiled beneath the surface at their newly excavated transport station. Only a few guards were left at the surface while the dilapidated guardian assembly plant had been commandeered as a main base of operations.

As the days went by, Megatron liked this project more and more. The central transport hub for the superannuated guardian robots was now at his disposal. Repairs were still being conducted, but completion was near to hand. Soon he would be able to ship troops down into the bowels of the planet, deeper than he had been able to send soldiers of such size and quantity before.

Ravage had been the one to locate the current base of the Decepticon femmes. It really got in Megatron's grill to know they were still using his faction's name. He wanted no part of them. He wanted them eradicated. Perhaps if he had been aware of their survival beforehand, Megatron would have been satisfied just to know their nugatory numbers were cowering in the dark, barely scraping out an existence. But after they dared to infiltrate _his_ army, impersonate his soldiers, torture one of his own and steal his property, he would not suffer to let them live any longer.

With Starscream's information gleaned from Alpha Trion's old records, Megatron finally had a way to get down there and eradicate those femmes for good. Then, who knows what he would do next with his new acquisition? He could ship soldiers all over the planet, right under the Autobots' noses. He had grand dreams of sending his seekers right in the midst of Iacon and torching the place to the ground. Oh, the possibilities. Why hadn't he thought of such a brilliant scheme before?

"Megatron," Soundwave warbled, interrupting the leader's daydreams of conquest, "incoming emergency signal from Darkmount."

"Emergency at Darkmount?" Megatron huffed. "What is that idiot Shockwave doing? Patch it through."

Shockwave's voice barely made it through the heavy static of the transmission. "Attack at Darkmount... tower... compromised... falling apart...don't know where... trying to rally troops... backup reques-" Everything died into heavy dissonance as the signal was lost.

Skywarp and Starscream were near enough to hear. The words were chilling. Everything was fine a second ago; how could Darkmount suddenly start falling apart?

"Starscream," Megatron ordered, "take every available seeker we have and return to Darkmount immediately; it is under attack."

There were no derisive remarks or arguments from the red seeker. Darkmount was his home, too. With merely a nod, he and Skywarp ran for the surface, Starscream barking orders over his radio.

"Soundwave, dispatch a few soldiers to stay and guard the site. The rest I will be leading."

"As you command," the blue mech nodded.

Megatron clenched his fists as he stormed off to gather his troops. Whoever was responsible for this attack was going to pay.

* * *

Drift found himself extremely dissatisfied with his current situation, which was unfortunate since he was out of Iacon, scavenging parts for his shuttle. Usually his favorite activity, a few certain stray cogs were thrown into his latest excursion below ground. Namely, a pair of brightly colored twins.

"Look at all this useless scrap," Sunstreaker announced, kicking at a pile of rusted pipes. He then frowned at the residue left on his foot and tried to wipe it off. "This place is filthy."

"I don't know where you're looking; I keep finding cool stuff," Sideswipe said, a pile of random objects in his arms and optics shining with child-like delight. The red twin was dirty from head to toe from his fearless treks into piles of rubble.

Sunstreaker gave his filthy brother a wide berth, scowling as Sideswipe brandished an object in his face.

"Remember these, Streaker?" He pressed a button and set it on the ground. The top-like object began to spin and emit brightly colored lights, projecting a holographic femme to light up the darkness.

"Hey yeah," the yellow Autobot snickered as the femme beckoned an imaginary partner with a come hither look. "I used to have a whole collection of these."

Drift approached, frowning slightly at the sensuous movements of the projected female. It was most likely to get more bawdy further into it. "So classy."

"They're collector's items, Neutral," Sunstreaker insisted. "An important piece of our history. I bet we could sell them for a good price, too." He turned to his brother. "Were there any more?"

Blitzangel wandered into the area and Sideswipe hastily kicked the trinket aside as the holographic femme began taking off parts of her armor for the viewer's pleasure. The picture flickered and then fell dark.

"Find anything useful?" she called.

All three mechs remained silent.

"Well, I'm going to check these buildings," she said, eagerly eying the row of dwellings. Sometimes these little field-trips became less about looking for what they specifically needed and more about what secrets they would discover by nosing around old houses. This was one such time and Blitzangel welcomed the distraction. It gave her something else to do instead of worrying about Prowl. She recalled Ratchet saying that time away from the body was not good for his spark. Until a new body could be built for the second-in-command, she would not be able to stop fretting about his condition.

What Drift knew about Prowl was the same as most of the other Autobots did: he had been wounded on his last mission and was currently in recovery. How bad his injuries were and the length of his recovery time were kept classified. Blitzangel seemed to know a bit more, but she had been given orders not to divulge any information on the second's current condition.

What Drift did learn is that Prowl had previously been the main overseer of Blitzangel's well-being. And with Prowl out of commission, that responsibility had been assumed by Jazz. Whether or not Prowl knew of their underground escapades, Jazz did. Instead of forbidding the two to leave the city, he assigned them a certain time period where they could leave to salvage, so long as they took certain escorts with them. Jazz said there was safety in numbers. Drift wasn't sure if that was the only reason the twins were ordered along.

Though he had to admit, while he hated the idea at first, the brothers were adept at the task and were proving to be quite helpful in discovering the parts needed, despite obvious distractions.

"See, aren't you glad we came along, Neutral?" Sunstreaker smirked with a harder than

necessary slap on the back. "We find all the cool stuff."

"Yeah," Drift admitted. "The work's been going so much faster today. I've got to give credit to Jazz. I thought we were busted when I saw him walking up. But he has really been trying to help me out."

"Oh, he's not doing all this for you," Sideswipe cut in seriously.

"Yeah," Sunstreaker agreed. "He's not helping you, he wants to get rid of you."

"Jazz?" Drift asked, baffled. The mech seemed like such a straight up guy, nothing but nice the entire time. "Why?"

Sunstreaker nodded emphatically in Blitzangel's direction. "He's taking out the competition."

Drift glanced in Blitzangel's direction, somewhat slack-jawed.

"You're going to wish Prowl was still in charge," the yellow Autobot continued. "He doesn't let things get personal and whatever he does to you, he does it straight up. But Jazz, he's one sneaky fragger. When he goes for you, you never see it coming."

Drift stood there a moment, frowning as he stewed over that information. The twins moved on to let him ruminate. Eventually, he followed Blitzangel into the first house. With the twins wandering elsewhere (no doubt searching for more questionable contraband), he had an opportunity to talk with her alone.

He located the purple femme in the back berthroom. She was currently raiding a desk for anything interesting with a certain archaeological glee. Each opened drawer contained new and exciting possibilities. Blitzangel glanced up when he entered the room.

"Finding anything interesting?" Drift asked.

"Not too much. This place looks like it was pretty cleaned out before they moved." Still, that didn't stop her from continuing to nose around.

He paused for a moment before speaking again. "I heard you intend to join the Autobots, officially."

Noting his somber tone, Blitzangel paused to meet his gaze. "Yeah, that's something I decided lately. My place and my loyalties are with the Autobots."

Disappointment radiated from the white mech in waves.

"I'm sorry," she continued. "I feel it's where I belong. I need to stay here. Though you know I'm still loyal to you, too. You can always come visit. Or even join them if you like."

Drift was shaking his head before she could finish. Blitzangel already knew his answer anyway. Both had hopes for something the other one did not want.

"I'm sorry," she said again with a shrug.

"It's fine," Drift sighed as he plopped himself on the dusty berth. "I'm happy you feel comfortable here, really."

Blitzangel wanted to tell him about her mission with Prowl and the Decepti-femmes, and how everything began to make sense to her down in the middle of the planet. But she knew that also wasn't something Drift would want to hear and she didn't want to torture him any longer with her own thoughts of the future. But thinking about the mission did remind her of something else.

"Oh hey, I saw something while I was deep down in Cybertron. I want to show it to you." She sat herself on the berth next to him. "Maybe you can make more sense of it than we did."

Drift immediately felt a bit better, knowing she still considered him the expert on practically everything alien to her, including the Cybertronian culture. With that came the pressure to continue to live up to her expectations.

The femme offered her forearm, bringing up a holographic projection of a snapshot. "We found the remains of this guy down in some ancient courtyard. Prowl said he had no idea what it was. I think it's part organic."

Drift took her wrist to pull the picture closer. He squinted at the image. "Part mechanical, part organic really narrows down the possibilities. Looks like a Quintesson."

"Quintesson," Blitzangel repeated. "And what is one doing down there on your planet?"

"Too bad Wing isn't here, he probably could have told you. He knew quite a bit about those ugly fraggers."

Blitzangel smirked at him. "I take it they were not referred to with much affection?"

"I've only met one in my lifetime, myself. They're shrewd as the pit when it comes to business and they have a certain disdain they seem to reserve just for us Cybertronians. Wing believed our two cultures had a lot of shared history way, way back when. But when I would ask him about his history theories, he would clam up or claim ignorance. I'm sure he knew more than what he was willing to tell me, but I don't know why he kept it to himself.

"My best assumption was that he had a bad run in with one of them at some point, but he didn't want to influence my opinion of them. That was Wing. He loved space travel and being open to all kinds of cultures. The prejudice to our kind wasn't quite so bad out there before the Great War started, but it was still there. Wing was always dedicated to being an ambassador to other planets on our behalf."

"I wish I could have met him," Blitzangel said softly. "He sounds amazing."

Drift smiled at her. "He was. I wish you could have met him, too."

"But what about the writing back here?" She pointed to the snapshot at the writing scrawled on the wall behind the Quintesson corpse. "Do you recognize it?"

"That could be either ancient Cybertronian or Quintesson writing. They're kinda the same."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, both languages have remarkably similar roots. It's one of the main reasons Wing and other_ historiographers _believed our two cultures shared similar history."

"Do you know what it says? Prowl tried to translate, but he wasn't sure if it was correct."

"What did Prowl think it said?" Drift asked, secretly hoping he was way off in order to show off.

"Something like 'I still live' or 'I will become alive'. Something like that."

"It's close, I guess. Though maybe he just recognized symbol for 'alive' and guessed on the rest."

Blitzangel smirked at him, knowing he was relishing this opportunity to show off. "So what does it say, almighty scholar?"

"It's a warning. It says 'They have come alive.'"

Blitzangel made an "Ahh" face and then closed her mouth. "Wait. Who is 'they'?"

"You got me," Drift responded. "Whatever it was, it happened millions of years ago. Probably the reason that poor guy's corpse is still down there."

Blitzangel sat quietly for a moment. "Drift, have you seen this writing anywhere else while we were traveling around? I swear it looks so familiar."

"Uhh... not that I can recall. Maybe you saw it on Cybertron somewhere." Drift stood and stretched. "Well I'm going to check on our chaperons and make sure they haven't wandered off. You coming?"

"In a bit." She patted the berth she was sitting on. "This looks like a fancy custom model. I'm going to gut it and see if there's anything interesting to be found."

"Suit yourself." Drift turned to go.

Blitzangel suddenly jabbed a finger at his back and recognition. "That's where I saw it before! I'm such a dork! There's the same writing on your sword! The one Wing gave you."

Drift paused. "Huh. Oh yeah. I guess I just wear it so much, I don't think about what's on it."

The femme leaned forward on the berth. "So what does it say?"

Blitzangel suddenly looked so enticing, leaning on that old, dusty berth. Drift had to turn away to catch himself. He recovered by pretending he was trying to be secretive. "Maybe I'll tell you sometime."

"Do you even know what it says?" the femme accused as she stood up.

Drift turned toward her as a thought hit him. "You know what, I'm going to give you this basic learners program. It's not going to instantly turn you into a scholar, but it will give you the tools to help you translate. Maybe after a bit of practice, you can tell me what it says."

Blitzangel seemed quite pleased with that. She always did like to figure things out herself. "Deal," she agreed as Drift transferred the file to her wirelessly.

Drift left the room, but she heard him encounter other voices before he made it out the front door. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were obviously taking their turn to poke around.

When left alone, Blitzangel turned her attention back to the berth and set about taking it apart. In the process, she uncovered an unexpected compartment hidden in the side. "What do you do?" she wondered to herself as she pried the thing open. Its age had stuck it tight and she really had to yank to get it open. Suddenly it pulled free, dumping a data pad in her lap.

"Well that's interesting," she said aloud as she inspected her find. "I wonder if Prowl has a compartment like this so he can do reports while he's recharging. Probably. Let's see what we've got here." She flipped it on and mentally high-fived herself to find it still worked. Her spirits sank a little when she found out that all the text was an older Cybertronian that she couldn't read.

"Aw, man," she groaned. She scrolled through the file as if expecting the lower text to magically be in a language she understood. Then she decided this would make a nice project to help her learn with the new program Drift provided. She paused in the middle of the text file to see if she could pick out a few words.

The program was designed to build upon itself, to learn as the reader learned. It matched symbols with existing data and then filed then put them in reference to the context of other symbols around it. It was slow going at first, picking up in speed little by little as Blitzangel's processor stored information faster than her human brain ever could.

In the front room, one of the male voices called to her, asking if she was ready to leave. Blitzangel ignored it as she pieced together a paragraph.

"What?" she wondered to herself. "I can't be reading this right." She skipped to a new line and tried again. Maybe there was something lost in the translation. It couldn't mean what she thought it meant. And yet, even further down, the more she read the more it supported her theory.

"Oh my gosh," she giggled, optic band bright with scandalous joy. "I can't believe this is-"

"Hey Angel, what'cha doing?" Sunstreaker asked as he poked his head in.

"Nothing," she instantly insisted, putting the data pad down. It immediately beeped that the battery was low and flickered off. At least the evidence was gone now.

Sunstreaker gave her a suspicious look. "What you got there?"

"Oh, uh, I found an old data pad written in Ancient Cybertronian. I'm going to take it home to practice. Drift was teaching me how to read it."

"Alright, well we're heading out. You coming?"

"Yup. Wait for me." Blitzangel tucked the pad under her arm with a secret smile. She couldn't wait to get it charged again. This was going to be entertaining.

* * *

As Megatron approached his stronghold from the sky, he found Darkmount tower in disturbing condition. Thick pillars of black smoke belched from the gutted monolith, a garishly orange Autobot shuttle sticking out of its side like an unsightly abscess. Dread rushed the Decepticon leader's system, a foreign sensation. It wasn't often the mighty Megatron felt even a modicum of fear, but the blatant attack, the smoke, the frantic laser fire flickering below him were sights he was unaccustomed to and trepidation skittered through his spark until anger indelibly took over.

He was suddenly enraged beyond words. How dare those pit-spawned Autobots attack his stronghold and desecrate his tower? He would kill every one of them slowly and shower in the ichor of their dying sparks! Megatron's optics glowed a blood red, revenge on his processor as he let himself drop like a cannonball to the chaos below. The ground shuddered with his impact, Soundwave landing in a more controlled descent behind him.

It was no easier to make sense of the current situation from the ground. Several fires now burned through the compound, smoke hiding enemy and comrade alike. The sounds of battle came from every direction.

From out of the gray billows scampered a thin form. It wasn't a design Megatron recognized. Most of his soldiers were far too big and strong to be something like this.

The smoke camouflaged his silver form, rendering it unnoticed until Megatron caught the thin bot by the neck. Effortlessly lifting the trespasser to his face, Megatron was met with wide, femme optics. He growled as rage boiled through every microchip of his being. This was no Autobot. This worthless scrap in his clutches was ex-Decepticon. The remaining trash he had failed to dispose of all those years ago. And they dare to bring their filth to his doorstep? This day would be the last their kind would ever see!

As for this femme, she could take her parting view of Megatron's rage to the Matrix. She gaped like a fish, scraping ineffectually at the hand that slowly crushed her neck until her optics flickered out. The femme fell limp. Head and body separated, both tumbling to the ground. Megatron brushed the neck debris from his hand as he watched the decapitated body twitch.

"Soundwave, send a signal to all units," he growled as he aimed his cannon at the headless femme. "Kill every femme on sight. Wipe them out."

His cannon fired, aimed at the chest cavity of his victim. Heat licked his silver frame before he was splattered with pink energon and gelatinous, blue spark matter. Without even bothering to wipe the gore from his face, Megatron turned and marched into the smoke like a dark, murdering storm.

* * *

It had taken Shockwave much longer than he would have liked to regain some semblance of order after the initial attack. He had been in one of the lower levels of the tower when he was informed of an Autobot shuttle in Decepticon airspace. He didn't even have the time to make it up to the surveillance room before the shuttle collided with the tower at full speed.

The walls around him shuddered as if the world were ending. Emergency feeds flooded his radio: reports of Autobots, femmes, Decepticons. Shockwave couldn't make sense of who exactly was attacking them. Everything fell apart before he could even put the pieces together.

Ego bruised, he reluctantly sent a plea to Megatron for reinforcements. In the meantime, it was nearly impossible to rally his soldiers as the Decepticons attempted to defend their tower. This wasn't the type of warfare Shockwave was used to. He was accustomed to the battlefield laying before him like a chessboard, the enemies clear to him on the other side.

The attack on the tower was illogical and desperate. And brilliant. As the enemy spilled into the tower, Shockwave had no hope of organizing troops scattered on several different tower levels. He could see neither friend nor foe, which made it impossible to come up with a plan of defense.

As Starscream's seekers radioed they were incoming, Shockwave finally began to deduce from various reports that their attackers were actually female ex-Decepticons in a stolen Autobot shuttle. It was information he passed on to Starscream as the seekers descended on the tower. That, along with Megatron's orders to kill all femmes on sight, seemed to shake the last of the surprise from the Decepticons. There were no more panicked communications. All Decepticons were now holding their ground and pushing back against the enemy.

Despite this, the tower itself was still difficult to secure. Shockwave took it on himself to see to this task while Megatron and Starscream led the brunt of the retaliation. Shockwave's goal was to push all the femmes out of the tower into open space where they would be sitting targets for the seekers.

"Well look here, if it isn't _Commander_ Shockwave," came a sarcastic and feminine voice from the hall behind him.

Shockwave turned, the energy rifle of his left hand warmed with readiness. At the other end of the hall stood a smirking black and red femme. Next to her was the larger form of Beatback. That meant this femme was his former lieutenant Ransack in her true form.

"You two have earned yourself a traitor's death for this," he warned in his usually calm voice.  
"The Decepticons betrayed us femmes first when we were loyal to the cause," Ransack spat back. "You deserve this entire tower to be burned to the ground and more."

"And you, Beatback." Shockwave nodded to the larger, dark blue mech. "What is your stake in this? You are not one of them."

Beatback frowned, red optics glowing with a deep anger. "What makes you think you know what I am?"

He raised his weapon, but Shockwave was faster. The two ducked as he fired on them. When Ransack and Beatback returned fire, Shockwave didn't flinch. Instead, he turned into his larger cannon form and let loose with a massive blast. Beatback pulled Ransack out of the way as the entire hall collapsed on itself from the damage. Debris from the floor above spilled in to completely block the way.

Shockwave walked up to the cave-in he had caused. He let his temper get the best of him. If those two incurred any damage, it would be minimal at best. And he had blocked his own way to go after them and give them the messy end they deserved. Shockwave clenched his single fist until it shook as he stood there, seething silently.

* * *

Megatron's gray coat was painted anew as he tore an arm from the feminine body crunched under his foot. He flung the limb aside before pressing down until the chest cavity cracked like an egg. The spark popped and blue fluid pooled around the corpse. Megatron made no attempt to clean himself as different colors dripped from his fingers.

Starscream often insisted the Decepticon leader consider adding more pizazz and drama to his color scheme if he planned on ruling Cybertron and all of the galaxy. But Megatron liked himself to be dull and colorless. His paint came from the battlefield. His dull gray did nothing to hide the black splatter of oil, pink of energon, and all the other life-bloods of his victims. His victories were plastered on his chest with pride and his approach was terrifying to behold.

Another femme fell victim to his energy cannon before a shrill voice screamed his name.

"MEGATRON!"

He turned slowly, as if knowing no matter who called, they were no threat to him.

Something dropped down in a crouch; a form pale white as bone. The figure was unfamiliar and foreign compared to most Cybertronian designs, full of points and sharp edges. The form righted itself on two thin legs, a mere fraction of Megatron's size and bulk. The Decepticon leader continued to stare. His processor raced to make sense of the alien angles of the body, the round, dome-like head, the oval optics almost too large for the face. What was this creation standing before him?

"You don't recognize me anymore," it said in a bitter, feminine voice. "You should. You did this to me. Tore me apart piece by piece until there was only a skeleton left to recover."

Megatron's brow ridge raised in slight recollection, his stance now more confident. "Spectre, is this what has become of you? I should have known your devil spark wouldn't have sense enough to join the Matri,; even after having lost so completely."

"I shall not die until I finish with you, dark tyrant," the femme leader growled. The painted-on mouth did not move as she spoke.

Megatron just smirked as he looked her over again. "Tell me, is your insignificant revenge worth dragging around those few pathetic bits of metal I left you with? What do you hope do you have against me now? Just look at you."

The stationary mouth of the pallid form suddenly split into a razor-blade smile. A rictal maw of teeth grinned back like a shark's, still unmoving as she spoke. "You have no idea what you left me with."

Spectre's hand surged forward, fingers poised like claws. The digits shot out impossibly long, swiping at the broadness of Megatron's chest. Still taken off guard by the display of teeth, Megatron was slow to move and the tips of the razor sharp claws hit their mark. It was as quick as the swipe of a cat and he stumbled back in surprise, staring down at the damage.

The claws had gone through him like a hot knife through butter. It felt as though she had barely grazed him, but the sharp metal pierced him deeply. Past the protective outer armor, liquids dribbled from the damaged internal systems. He raised a hand to touch the wounds, only to find his fingertips to be shaved clean off. He must have reflexively tried to grab the claws when she scratched him.

"That was for what you did to me," Spectre said with a smirk in her voice. "I'll treasure that stupid look on your faceplate for the rest of my days. We know what you've been up to. You think we'll just cower in a corner while you hunt us down? You wanted us, you got us, Megatron." She crouched in a fighting stance. "I'm going to enjoy cutting you down to size piece by piece."

Megatron's expression mirrored her own confident tone. A challenge. His systems shivered in excitement. "Don't let our distance keep you, then. Or do you fear the pleasure of this dance will be all mine?"

Spectre trembled in rage at his maddening smirk. She tensed to attack.

_This is for you, Wing.  
_

* * *

Darkstar stiffened and paused when she heard laser-fire down the hall followed by feminine shouts. She wasn't expecting to encounter much resistance down here. Being discovered too soon could ruin their entire objective. Her team had not been in the Autobot shuttle. They had left home base days before, stationing themselves layers beneath Darkmount, too deep to be detected by the Decepticons.

But they still felt the ground shake when that shuttle hit and Darkstar's team immediately went into action. Their goal was not to engage the Decepticons, but plunder what had been left unguarded in the confusion: the energy reserves kept under the surface. Ransack and Beatback told the other femmes exactly where it was kept and Darkstar's team was shuttling as much as they could carry back into the underground tunnels when she heard the unexpected skirmish and ran to check it out.

Firefly, the femme she had stationed as a lookout, was now branded by a smoking burn on her shoulder while she angrily pointed her gun at something smaller than her collapsed on the ground.

"What's going on?" Darkstar demanded as she ran up.

"Nothing Commander, just taking out the trash," Firefly said as she fingered the trigger. "This one thought he was being sneaky. He should learn not to take on bots bigger than himself."

"Go get smelted! I could take you out!" Rumble retorted. His hand pressed into the gaping wound on his side which was leaking liberally all over the floor. The damage could be terminal if he was left without help for too long.

"Let's go, Firefly," Darkstar ordered. "We've got all we can carry. He's going to call the other Decepticons to us."

"Not if I plug him up first," the other femme vowed.

"It's probably already too late, just go."

Firefly gave her commanding officer a stubborn and suspicious look, not lowering her weapon.

"I said go!" Darkstar barked. It wasn't often she put so much force in her voice. "That's an order!"

With one last dark look in Rumble's direction, Firefly stormed off to help her sisters evacuate.

Darkstar retrieved a medical patch from her hip compartment and tossed it to the small Decepticon. "You better staunch that leak before you fall into stasis lock."

Rumble reached for the patch with oil-coated fingers, then stiffened as the femme turned to go. "Darkstar! Darkstar, wait! Come back!"

The femme ignored the calls, especially when she heard more Decepticons running for her position. She raced back to the storage unit. "The Decepticons are coming! Go!"

The last of the femmes were still making their way into the tunnel. There wasn't enough of a head start to cart their precious haul back to their own secret bunkers. The Decepticons would catch up to them first. Lives would be lost and all that energy would be gone. Darkstar couldn't let that happen.

"Come on! Hurry!" Firefly called from the lip of the tunnel. She was the last one in.

The footfalls and calls of Decepticon males were getting closer.

"Go on without me," Darkstar ordered, pulling out her energy rifle. "I'll make sure you're not followed. Just get everyone home. Don't look back."

Firefly's earlier disgust with Darkstar's clemency turned to admiration before she disappeared into the tunnel.

Darkstar set detonators around the storage room. When the group of armed Decepticons rounded the corner, she was standing in the middle of the hall to greet them.

"Get that femme!" barked the Decepticon in the lead.

Darkstar hit the detonator switch and the explosion rocked the hallway. While it effectively plugged the tunnel where the other femmes had fled, the hallway was still partly passable. As the males spotted her through the smoke, she turned and ran for her life.

* * *

Megatron stumbled back, his body slashed from head to foot. Most of the wounds weren't bad enough to trouble him, but he was leaking from a few particularly deep gashes. This new Spectre- the mangled shadow of her former self- was far more formidable than he expected. Though small, she was lightning fast. She knew better than to let Megatron get his hands on her again. She easily dodged every plasma blast. Megatron was not happy and that maddening, puppet-like grin on her face only fueled his rage.

"How does it feel to be torn apart a little at a time, _Lord_ Megatron?" she asked in a mocking tone.

Megatron growled, his temper getting the best of him. He fired three quick shots, all missing their target as Spectre's wiry form easily hopped about. When he got his hands on that femme, there would be nothing left but mangled scrap and oil.

"Spectre," Darkstar's voice came over her radio. It sounded like her second in command was running. "We got what we came for; my team is already in motion. I'm still on site. It's time to pull back."

"Not now," Spectre hissed as she eyed Megatron. His rage fueled her. How she dreamed of standing on his dying frame, laughing in his face. "He's right in my grasp. I'll not lose this opportunity."

"All our femmes are retreating underground, Spectre," came Darkstar's rational voice. "Soon there will be no one for the Decepticon forces to focus on except you and your one-on-one time with Megatron will come to an abrupt end. Is that what you want?"

If Spectre had working facial features, she would have scowled. No, that was not what she wanted. She wanted time to savor taking him apart piece by piece. Her revenge would, again, have to wait.

"All units, fall back and disappear," she ordered over her radio. "Help any wounded you can. Get underground, now. Spectre out."

Megatron was waiting for her, watching for her next course of action. Waiting for the next attack.

"Our final dance will have to be postponed, I'm afraid," Spectre told him. "But make no mistake, Megatron. I will be your end."

Before the Decepticon leader could come up with a retort, she was gone, racing away at a speed he had no hope of matching. Megatron stood there for a second, processing the fact that his prey was no longer in his sights. Then he growled and immediately went back to barking orders over his com link. This battle wasn't over yet.

* * *

Thundercracker and Skywarp were in a deadly dance of their own when Megatron's orders came through to push the femmes out. Catscratch was cornered in the midst of the two seekers as they tried to take her down without succumbing to her deadly toxin. Thundercracker was far more safety-minded than his wingmate. While he kept a healthy distance from the dangerous femme, Skywarp mockingly blipped in and out around the frustrated femme.

Catscratch snarled and swiped, but her tendrils were always one second too late before Skywarp disappeared again. He was having too much fun to think about the danger. Pissing off this femme really made his day. But in the midst of his play, Skywarp caught movement out of the corner of his optic. A tall femme of royal blue and yellow raced along the catwalk above him, shouting orders. Skywarp recognized her instantly.

"Darkstar," he muttered, and completely disappeared one second before Catscratch could slice him.

The black and purple seeker did not reappear this time, leaving only the cautious Thundercracker to face the femme. He fired upon her as she dodged around a large piece of the tower which had fallen. At the same time, Catscratch heard the orders to evacuate Darkmount. As Thundercracker moved in for a better shot, Catscratch took one last desperate swipe to knock him off balance and then fled for freedom.

* * *

All femmes still functioning were well into a full evacuation from the Decepticon city-base. Darkstar personally saw to it. Her organizational skills ensured a clean retreat, allowing for the wounded femmes to be carried out safely as well. Spectre was now safely into the underground tunnels. Darkstar remained behind until the last of her femmes slipped down into the safety of the tunnels.

Ransack was the last one in. The mouth of the tunnel was littered with detonators to block their pursuers. "The explosives are live. Time for us to split, Dark-"

As she turned to her second-in-command, a black and purple seeker appeared behind Darkstar. Before Ransack could fire, the seeker put his arms around Darkstar and they both instantly disappeared.  
Ransack was left alone, gaping at the empty space. The approach of the full Decepticon army shook her back to her senses. She had no choice but to detonate the tunnel and flee.

* * *

As Soundwave surveyed the damage outside, Ravage scratched at his leg to get his attention. A seeker still in bot mode practically stumbled through the air, landing sloppily next to him on unsteady legs. Soundwave reached out an arm to steady him as Thundercracker nearly buckled under his own weight.

"Get Shockwave," the blue seeker forced out with a glitching vocalizer. "Catscratch... she got me..."

Then everything went dark.

* * *

Blitzangel carefully peered into the quiet medical office, pleased to see that an orange femme was the only resident to be found. She learned that Firestar enjoyed relaxing in Ratchet's office when she was off duty. Even if Ratchet wasn't present himself. Blitzangel counted herself lucky Firestar was alone. If Ratchet had been here, she would have had to save this encounter for another time.

Firestar, who had been lazing on the couch, turned her head toward the door when she heard the other femme enter. "Oh hi, Blitzangel. Ratchet isn't here right now. I can call him for you if you need."

"Oh, actually I was looking for you," the purple femme said shyly, data pad in hand.

"Really," Firestar said, instantly sitting up and looking pleased Blitzangel had come to her. She patted the space next to her. "Come sit here, sweetie. What can I do for you?"

"I found this old data pad. It's in Ancient Cybertronian and Drift's helping me learn to read it. Uh... do you understand it?"

"I can figure out most of it," Firestar said, resting a cheek on her fist in amusement. It was the first time she had seen Ratchet's little femme so enthusiastic about something. "Depending on how old it is, I can probably decipher it unless it's before the first war."

"Okay," Blitzangel confirmed, now grinning again as she held the device like it was a priceless treasure. "At first when I found these, I thought they were maybe just boring reports or something. I just wanted some text to practice with. But I think they're actually stories. Like... explicit stories?" She hoped she used a word that translated correctly. The intimate part of Cybertronian relationships and the vocabulary involved was still a huge gray area for her.

Firestar's optics glittered with intrigue. It seemed there was no meaning lost this time. She grinned. "You don't say. That's hilarious." She held out her hands for the data pad and Blitzangel allowed her to look at it.

"Oh yeah. These are going to be fun to translate, but I don't know if I want to go over them with Drift." Blitzangel gave a hopeful glance in Firestar's direction. "I was hoping I could check my translations with you? And maybe... you could explain some things to me? Femme to femme? You know, since I used to be human, so I'm not really familiar with how-"

"Wait, you used to be HUMAN?" Firestar cut in, slapping the pad on her thighs. "As in 'an organic life form from Earth?'"

Blitzangel suddenly had a horrible sinking feeling. She just made a terrible mistake. "Oh God, I thought you knew. I thought Ratchet would have told you..."

Firestar leaned forward even as the purple femme tried to scoot away. Her optics turned scrutinizing. "Ratchet didn't tell me anything about you except that he rebuilt you once. Told me it was none of my business and now I know why."

Blitzangel almost backed right off the couch until a set of legs blocked her retreat. "It's still none of your business," Ratchet's voice stated above her. She looked up to see the white mech with his hands on his hips. "You should know better than to just spit out certain things."

The purple femme righted herself, gesturing helplessly from Firestar to Ratchet. "But you guys are... together right? I thought that you would have told her since you guys are close."

"Apparently, not that close," Firestar accused, hands folded across her chest.

Ratchet's imposing stature deflated a bit when he felt Firestar's heated look upon him. "We'll hash this out later," the medic promised her.

"Oh, I'm collecting on that," she warned.

Ratchet tried to recover his dignity by changing the focus. "Blitzangel, I'd like to show you something, if you would come with me?"

She stood to follow, but then paused. "Oh, my data pad." She turned to retrieve it, but Firestar held it out of reach.

"I think I'll hold onto this," Firestar said with a smirk. "I don't think it's appropriate for you. I need to review it first."

"Son of a bitch," Blitzangel hissed. "I'm an adult! All you robots are just super old!"

Firestar straightened a bit, offended, but Ratchet jumped in again before the situation could heat up.

"Come on, Miss Adult." He herded her out of the room with a hand at her back. "I have something I want to show you."

Blitzangel didn't appreciate his tone, he was still talking to her as if she were a child. She also didn't feel too forgiving toward Firestar for confiscating her find. But she went with the medic anyway. It was never worth the effort, going against Ratchet.

He led her to the elevator and pushed a button for one of the deeper levels, even further down than the planet's surface.

"I'm sorry," Blitzangel spoke up after Ratchet frowned silently for a few floors. "I thought you had told her. I was under the impression you two were... doing stuff together."

Ratchet raised an optic ridge in challenge. "What sort of 'stuff' would that be?"

"The word she used was 'fragging'."

The medic made a choking noise and then covered his face with a palm. "Oh, that femme..." For the first time he considered that it might have been a good idea to tell Firestar beforehand.

"But you two _are_ involved, aren't you?" Blitzangel pressed.

"We are, if you must know."

She paused. "Do you love her?"

The frown came back. "What business is it of yours, may I ask?"

Blitzangel shrugged lightly. "I just like seeing your happy is all."

Ratchet's dour expression lightened slightly as the elevator stopped on the desired floor and he led her out. "Don't worry about the mixup; I'll take care of Firestar."

"I'm sure you will," Blitzangel grinned at his back.

Ratchet shot her a warning look, but let it slide as they walked down a short hall and through a doorway.

"So why exactly am I down he-" Before she could even finish asking, Blitzangel saw what sat on the examining table and it took all her words away.

The body was a black, metal skeleton, arms and legs thin as bone with joints and wires exposed to the open air. It was a foreign scene as the figure tested the digits of his intricate hands, marveling himself at each finger as it moved. The head, however, was more familiar. With helm nearly completed, crest waiting for a wash of red paint, Blitzangel recognized the face immediately.

"Prowl!" she squealed with glee as rushed forward. She had already thrown herself at him, arms outstretched, when it suddenly dawned on her that maybe she shouldn't be throwing her weight around on something that was obviously still mid-construction. Her top half fell on him, arms sloppy around his neck, while her bottom half tried to regain balance and pull her back.

"Oops, sorry, you're probably still a little fragile right now." She pulled away, a bit embarrassed.

"Not too fragile," Ratchet insisted with a huff. "But certainly not battle-ready yet."

"Though a definite improvement," Prowl said with a nod. He did well to hide his relief at finally being back in a physical body. His spark had only been recently implanted before Ratchet went to retrieve Blitzangel. Prowl didn't realize how much he wanted to see her again until she was in the room with him.

"How do you feel?" she asked gently bending to be at his level.

He awarded her a slight smile. "Much better now."

"Now that Angel's here, right?" Jazz grinned as he stood behind him.

Blitzangel straightened. She hadn't even noticed he was already in the room until then.

"Hey Jazz, I should have guessed you'd be the first one here to see Prowl. You two care about each other so much. It's adorable."

"You mean hot. And mechly," Jazz corrected, standing to his full size. "Puppies are adorable. We're big, tough guys who just happen to look out for each other."

Prowl was frowning, not appreciating that comparison either.

Blitzangel pulled his skeletal frame to her, this time more gently. Prowl couldn't help but lean against her, resting his helm on her shoulder. Physical contact from anyone felt so amazing after swimming in that sensation-less void for several days. The ability to touch seemed like an amazing gift and Prowl felt determined not to take it for granted again.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she said softly, like a sweet melody to his audials. "You know I love you, right?"

"Yes, I know. You tell me often."

Blitzangel kissed the crown of his head. "Only because it's true."

"And what about me?" Jazz asked, arms folded jealously across his chest.

"I love this big goof, too," she confirmed, grabbing his chin to give his face several kisses.

Jazz looked extremely pleased with the attention, grinning wide.

Blitzangel turned to the medic. "Love you too, Ratchet." She moved to lay physical affection upon him, but he quickly brushed her off.

"Yes, yes. But none of that if you please."

She just grinned at him.

Prowl was silently devising a plan to get her attention back onto him. Maybe she would touch him again. While he was enjoying any physical stimulus at the moment, the femme's touch was far more pleasurable to his circuitry than Jazz's hardy back slaps or Ratchet's sterile medical hands. But before he could act on any plan, another mech stepped into the room and let out an elated cry of joy when he saw his brother.

"PROWL!" Bluestreak charged in before anyone could stop him, dive-tackling his brother and sending them both tumbling to the floor.

"Damnit, Bluestreak! Don't break him!" Ratchet barked. "Do you know how many hours it took me to build that?!"

* * *

Starscream frowned at the monitor. The visual feed from the prison cells focused on a lone figure, secured to a chair with chains much heavier than needed for a bot her size. The high power energy bars of her cell would still have kept her detained even if she did manage to escape her shackles. It was as if the Decepticons were holding a prisoner of far more dangerous size and strength than the bot they had in their custody. Starscream found it ridiculously excessive, even for Megatron.

Skywarp was even more dissatisfied with the current situation. He paced the surveillance room, wings twitching with agitation.

"What's he gonna do to her, Starscream? He has to know this is not her fault. She was just following orders. Darkstar wouldn't do this to us if it were her choice."

"Once again, Skywarp, you have acted without thinking and done something incredibly stupid," Starscream huffed. "Any punishment Megatron sees fit to bestow upon her will be on your head."

"I didn't want anything bad to happen to her, I just wanted her to come back. I know you wanted it, too. When we had Blitzangel, wasn't it nice to have four of us again? I saw it in your face, Starscream. You missed having her. The team just worked better when we had Darkstar."

"I'm not the one you have to convince; it's Megatron."

"But you have my back, right?" Skywarp prodded. "We'll talk to him together. He has to at least listen to what we have to say."

Starscream remained silent.

"Soundwave." Skywarp turned to the other mech in the room silently watching all video feeds as he sat in his chair. "You want Darkstar back, don't you?"

The blue mech gave no response, did not even acknowledge the seeker's presence.

"To the smelting pits, both of you," Skywarp huffed and promptly disappeared.

* * *

Megatron stood in the darkness of the prison, all previous battle wounds still adorning his body. The shadows surrounded him, angry red optics peering out. The only source of light came from the spotlight hanging directly over his prisoner. Darkstar had remained silent and motionless since she was brought into custody. Even now, she sat with her head down, unresponsive to the Deceptcion leader's presence.

He heard a crackle of energy behind him, but did not need to turn to see what it was.

"What is it you want, Skywarp? Did you want the honor of dispatching your prisoner yourself?"

"No," he protested, "I wanna keep her here as one of us."

Megatron swiveled his head in the seeker's direction slowly, his optics dangerous. He sometimes forgot how brazenly stupid the black and purple seeker was with his mouth. Starscream usually caught most of the verbal sewage, but sometimes Skywarp's moronic thoughts made it all the way to Megatron's audials unfiltered.

"You want this filth to join our ranks?"

Skywarp flinched at his leader's tone, but did not back down. "Why not? She was part of the Decepticons before."

"And then she betrayed us and now follows Spectre's traitorous carcass."

"No, Darkstar's one of us," Skywarp insisted. "She's always been one of us. She was our wingmate; I know her. If she were male, we wouldn't even be in this situation. Spectre was the one who turned on the Decepticons. Just because Darkstar is also a femme-"

He was cut off as Megatron raised a hand for silence. The Decepticon leader turned to the silent prisoner.

"What say you, femme? You who have joined in on this attack of our stronghold, who follow the leadership of my enemy, how would we ever trust you again?"

Darkstar slowly raised her head to meet Megatron's accusing gaze. "When the war started, I chose my allegiance, I chose you, My Lord Megatron. And I stay loyal to those I choose to follow. When Spectre turned against the Decepticons, she had several femmes on her side, this is true, but she did not speak for all of us.

"I believed in the Decepticon cause and I was willing to die for it, to die for you. But you were the one who relegated me to Spectre's side. It was that or face death by my own comrades. I had no choice but to flee with those who would have me."

"And if I would have you back," Megatron mused in a level tone."Then where would your loyalties lie?"

Darkstar sat silently for a moment. "I have always believed in the Decepticon cause. If I could have changed my gender, I would have done so, so that I could have continued to fight for it."

"See?" Skywarp suddenly cut in. "She's on our side. If we just let her-"

"Silence, Skywarp. I'm thinking."

"What's there to think about? You know her! She's been loyal to us! Put her under Starscream's watch, I'm sure-"

"Skywarp! I told you to shut up!" Megatron snapped. "The femme stays right where she is."

"What? But if you would just give-"

Megatron rounded on the seeker, a snarl on his lips. "This is not a discussion! Now get out of my sight before I turn you into scrap!"

Skywarp instantly disappeared, his optics still wide with surprise.

Megatron glared at the empty space Skywarp used to occupy. At least the seeker was good at making himself scarce when needed. Turning, the Decepticon leader cast one last dark glance at the incarcerated femme before storming off.

Darkstar was left alone with her cell and the silence.

* * *

Shockwave busied himself with the exposed internal systems of the twitching blue seeker on his examination table. Thundercracker's encounter with Catscratch could have been deadly had he not been infected while at the base. Luckily for him, Shockwave was on site and one of the few bots in all of Cybertron who knew how to counteract the virus. He had, after all, helped Catscratch develop it.

The trick to fighting such nastiness was to get the spark isolated as soon as possible before it ccould be infected. The victim needed to be put into immediate shutdown, cutting off all external functions to the spark. Then, one had to go through system by system to weed out the virus. It was a slow and meticulous process. Luckily for Thundercracker, Shockwave was all about being meticulous.

He was completely in the zone, tuned solely into the job at hand when a flash of purple and the zing of electricity crackled mere inches from him. He jumped, dropping the tool he was using into Thundercracker's innards before turning his angry single optic on the unexpected seeker.

"Skywarp! I have told you before, do not warp yourself into my lab under any circumstances! I have delicate machinery in here. Your warp field could damage-"

"Sorry," Skywarp cut him off without apology in his tone. "I just wanted to see how Thundercracker's doing. You're taking good care of him, right?"

Shockwave sighed internally. He knew from eons of experience that getting Skywarp to adhere to rules was a near impossible feat. "So far the virus' extraction is going smoothly. But it is a delicate process. One you are interrupting."

The seeker regarded his wingmate's body. "Why's he twitching like that? What's wrong with him?"

Skywarp attempted to touch Thundercracker's arm, but Shockwave slapped him away.

"Don't touch him or you may get infected as well. It's a side effect of the virus. As I begin to delete it from his various systems, the tremors will cease. There should not be any permanent damage to his core programming."

"Do your best for him, okay?" Skywarp said. "It's my fault this happened. I left him alone with Catscratch. I wasn't thinking."

"Yes, that seems to be a common problem for you," Shockwave responded in a dry tone.

Skywarp didn't seem to have heard. His attention was on Thundercracker's face as the blue seeker's expression twitched as if he were still fully online.

"Make it through this, 'Cracker," he said softly. "You're strong; I know you can do it."

Deep within the recesses of his processor, Thundercracker had not heard a thing. But activity still sparked and stirred, roiled by the foreign entity in his body. As it messed and muddled with his programming, something previously blocked began to fall apart and Thundercracker dreamed.


	25. Chapter 25: King for a Day

1. This chapter references the G1 episodes War Dawn and The Key to Vector Sigma. You may want to check those out on YouTube if you haven't seen them already.

I have a rather selfish goal in mind and I cannot do it alone, I need your help. I think it would be absolutely amazing if I can get 1,000 reviews for RG by the end of the story. But at the same time, I don't want people going through chapters and leaving 2 word reviews to drive up my review count. I would still much rather have quality reviews that do not meet my goal than empty reviews that drive up my numbers.

All I can do is continue to write the best chapters I can, the rest is up to you guys. So if you think my hard work has earned it, please take the time to leave me a review. They really do fuel my drive to write and make all the hard work worth it. So I also want to wholeheartedly thank those who have left me reviews in the past. You are the ones who drive me forward. Thank you for helping to keep my passion alive for this fic so I can finish it.

* * *

Rising Generations

Chapter 25: King for a Day

Beatback's fist collided with the wall, punching completely through the old eroded metal of the deeper Cybertronian caverns. A few Decepti-femmes stared at the demonstration of violence before skittering out of the area. Though Beatback had been with them for a very long time, it was still difficult for some of the group to trust a male, especially when he threw tantrums like this. It was best to leave him alone until he calmed down.

Ransack, who had been his partner all through their charade as Shockwave's lieutenants, was not intimidated as she watched him stalk murderously around.

"We can't leave Darkstar with those monsters. We have to go back," the mech insisted.

"I know," Ransack agreed. "But not now. We need time to calm down, to make a new plan. Then we'll get her out of there."

Beatback clenched his fists. "It will be too late then! What if they kill her right now?"

"No, they won't kill her yet. They'll try to get information from her first. And she's strong enough to withstand their interrogation tactics. We have some time."

"This is your fault," the mech said accusingly. "You let this happen."

"Hey, I didn't _let_ anything happen," Ransack shot back, bristling at the accusation. "Don't you think that if there was anything I could have done, I would have done it?" She vented out a puff of hot air. "How do you think I feel? She was right next to me and those slagging Decepticons took her from my side. I don't know what would be worse: if there was something I could do and I didn't, or that I had done everything right and she was still taken away."

Beatback's temper receded in the wake of her hurt expression. The femme's pride had certainly taken a beating that day. There was no use making her feel worse for it.

"I'm sorry. I know you did your best," the mech said. "I'm just angry."

"So am I," she responded, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, we're still partners and I will do what I can to help you get Darkstar back." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "Even if it means going against Spectre herself to do it."

Beatback watched her silently, then nodded.

* * *

Everything felt so familiar, but there was something wrong. The world was broken, disjointed.

But familiar.

Scenarios played before him like a movie on a damaged file. The timing was off; some scenes would play too quickly. The sound was garbled, and the whole tableau would jump from scene to scene as if stuck on random. Thundercracker had no control over any of it. He was a witness taken hostage, forced to watch as rooms and faces flashed before his optics in a disjointed play.

He could have sworn he had never been to these places or met these bots before, but he felt welcome there. It was like returning home.

Everything seemed so much better here. No dilapidated buildings and gray landscapes, no war-torn soldiers, just golden pillars and smiling faces. This was so much better than where he had been before. Even though the world moved on its own time, couldn't he just stay here? Thundercracker didn't want to go back.

"Hey! There you are."

The movie slowed down to normal time and Thundercracker was no longer the audience, but part of the play.

A young bot approached him, body of medium size painted blue and red. He grinned wide and confident, as if all the heavy woes of Cybertron could never touch him.

"You ready for tonight? I'm going to wipe the floor with you this time."

Thundercracker had no idea what he was talking about. He wanted to ask the young bot who he was and what was going on, but his body moved on its own. It was as if someone else had taken control of him and he was left to watch in the copilot's seat.

His mouth ticked up of its own accord. "You sure about that?" he asked. "Because every other time you and I faced off, it's been a completely different result, _kzzzt_."

He had addressed the bot by name, his mouth moved to form the words, but the sound fritzed out into static. It was as if someone had purposefully attempted to remove the bot's name from this recording.

The bot just laughed as if nothing were wrong with the sound. "True, but I've been practicing. You better watch out this time."

Behind him stood another bot, a femme. She was also young, pink and white in color. She smiled at Thundercracker as if the two of them shared a secret joke that went over the blue and red bot's head.

Thundercracker smiled back. He knew this couple; he cared about them. Their names had been deleted from his recollection, their history gone, but their faces had left an imprint upon him that still remained and Thundercracker was happy to be in their midst.

He was suddenly jerked forward in time. They were now outside on some kind of court. Many other bots gathered around, talking and having a good time. Thundercracker saw a large board with a list of names. They seemed to be paired off one on one, noting the winners from each match and moving them forward to face other victors. Until there were only two names left. The final match.

He stared at the names closely, but they were all blurred out. As hard as he tried to focus, he could not make them out. Everything else about his surroundings was clear as could be except those names.

The same blue and red bot approached him again, clapping a hand on his shoulder. Thundercracker noticed for the first time that they were about the same height. That didn't seem right. As a seeker, he should have towered over the other bot's medium build.

"Looks like it's just you and me this time, _kzzzt_."

This time, the bot had addressed Thundercracker by name, but the name still fell into harsh static.

"What? Say that again?" Thundercracker managed to say for himself.

"_Kzzzt_, stop trying to stall. It's not going to save you from me."

Thundercracker watched the bot's mouth carefully, trying to pick out his name from the static. But he clearly wasn't mouthing the word 'Thundercracker'. The name he said was too short. It wasn't his name... was it?

Time jerked forward again, pitching Thundercracker onto the court, and the game was on. HaloSphere was what it was called. It was played with a floating yellow orb, the goal being to gain points by shooting it through the opponent's hoop.

Thundercracker had no recollection of playing this game, yet he knew all about it. He knew the rules, he knew how to fake and break free of his opponent. And he knew how to toss the orb just so, so it went into the hoop every time. He also knew he was very good at this game, a lot better than most. He knew he could easily beat the blue and red bot.

The match flew by, faster than normal time. His body moved on fast forward, as if every single move of the entire game had already been predestined and he merely needed to go through the motions. But the other bot had also not lied when he said he had been practicing. Thundercracker found himself surprised at the bot's improvement in skills as if he had played against the younger bot several times before.

Still, Thundercracker was so much better. He purposefully held back a little to keep the game interesting. The scores stayed neck and neck until time was almost up. The score was tied, the next point won the game. The other bot had the orb and Thundercracker tensed to block his way.

"I just might beat you this time." The bot's voice was now full of excitement at this opportunity.

Thundercracker smiled. "We'll see."

The bot faked left and right, trying to get around Thundercracker, but he stayed in tight, blocking every opening. Time was running out and he heard a noise of frustration from his friend. Were they friends? Yes, Thundercracker decided, they were friends. And as the bot surged to the left, this time he didn't bother to stop him. He let the bot break free so he could get it close. He was always quite bad at the distance throws.

The bot ran up to the hoop and slammed the orb through right before the klaxon sounded, signaling the end of the game. The look of sheer disbelief and joy on the bot's face was payment in full for Thundercracker for losing the game. It was worth it.

He caught a glance of the pink and white femme in the crowd. She smiled at him thankfully, knowing full well what he had done. She ran up to the bot, hugging him as he spun her around. The kid was strutting around the place as if he had just come out with a shiny new remodel. Some bots were congratulating him while others stalked off in a huff of incredulity.

The winner hardly noticed either, still on cloud nine in his own world. He danced on over to the wall of a building and took out a welding pen. His femme quickly urged him not to deface the property, but the bot was already writing.

Thundercracker couldn't read most of it. It was blurred like an unfocused picture. The only part he could make out were the last words at the bottom.

_King for a day._

Though he couldn't put it into words, Thundercracker knew exactly what it meant. Then, he was sent surging forward through space and time, leaving the city and its inhabitants behind. His optics flickered on and he found himself staring at a drab ceiling.

A familiar head popped into his view.

"Hey 'Cracker," Skywarp greeted him, grin a bit crooked as always. "You still in one piece in there?"

The blue seeker winced as he sat up; his processor ached with a mental pain he couldn't quite define. He felt confused at first, disoriented. As if he didn't know who or where he was.

"You okay?" Skywarp asked, looking a little concerned. "Your processor still intact? What's my name?"

Everything suddenly slammed into place and whatever dream had haunted him in stasis fell away from his recollection and he remembered it no more.

He shoved his fellow seeker away, not liking how much his personal space was being invaded. "Get off me, Skywarp. I'm fine."

He glanced to the other side to find Shockwave monitoring his condition.

"You were infected with the Catscratch virus," the commander said. "I treated you before it could do any permanent damage, it seems. Spark is untouched. Do you feel there's any damage in your coding? Motor functions? Memory files?"

Something niggled at the back of his mind. Something that might have been important. Maybe it wasn't. He felt like he had everything he needed to move forward.

"No," he confirmed as he stood and tested his joints. "Everything seems to be in working order. You may report to Megatron that I am fit to go back on duty."

"Just a moment, Thundercracker. Only I have the authority to pronounce you fit-"

Thundercracker ignored him as he marched for the door. Skywarp smirked at Shockwave before following behind. The blue seeker didn't even glance back as he left the lab. There was no point in dwelling on whatever had been forgotten. Thundercracker was a bot who always looked forward, never behind. Glancing back never got him anywhere.

* * *

"He gazed around, shoulders broad and strong, a smiling mouth so full of silent promises.

'Good evening, ladies. I hear someone is in the market for a large piece of equipment.'"

Firestar paused in her reading as the femmes gathered around her giggled and tittered at the scandalous text. They had been laughing themselves silly for the past hour at the bawdy stories.

"Oh Firestar, these are too much," one femme laughed. "Where did you find these? They're hilarious."

"They look old, too," another femme chimed in. "Look at that ancient data pad."

"Got it off that newbie femme," Firestar said. "You know, the one that was rescued from Decepticon reprogramming? Not sure exactly where she found them."

"Oh, her," the first femme huffed. "Rescued or not, I don't feel like we can trust her. There's something strange about that femme."

_You don't know the half of if,_ Firestar thought to herself. Even though she now knew the truth of Blitzangel's origin, she was more than happy with keeping up the charade for the sake of the purple femme.

"Hey, cut her a break," Twilight spoke up. "She saved my life, okay? We can't judge her just because she acts different. You try being at the mercy of Decepticons for Primus knows how long and see if you don't come out the same."

That silenced the first femme. But then another femme spoke up.

"Hey, I don't know if this is true. It's just a rumor I heard about her. Now, I wasn't there, but one of the soldiers that was told me that that time Blitzangel crashed on the landing pad, 'she' was screaming and then her spark casing opened up and he picked up a _male_ spark signature."

Firestar remained stone-faced while the other femmes gasped. Ratchet had told her the whole story about that, too. That was Prowl's spark she was housing when she crashed. Of course it gave off a male signature. There was absolutely no way she could explain that to her cohorts.

"What do you think that means?" another femme joined in. "Why would the Decepticons put a male spark into a female casing? Are they really that depraved?"

"Got tired of not having anything pretty to look at," came a titter in response.

"Their own fault. They should have thought of that before they wiped out all their females."

Many of the femmes were obviously letting their processors plunge into the gutter, but Twilight looked unconvinced.

"And exactly what were _you_ doing to said soldier when he told you this, Stardust?"

The accused femme instantly balked, her internal temperature jumping a few degrees. The other femmes wasted no time in teasing her and prodding for details.

Firestar relaxed a little as the gossip turned from the topic of Blitzangel. There was nothing she could do to defend Ratchet's ward, but at least these gossiping femmes didn't have a long attention span.

* * *

"Hey, Angel."

The sudden voice knocked her out of her groove and caused her to hit her head on the casing above. The sound of metal on metal reverberated.

"You okay up there?"

"I'm fine," she insisted, rubbing her head in annoyance. "What do you want, Wheeljack? I'm still working on this part."

"There's someone here who wants to talk with you."

Blitzangel looked at her unfinished project with a huff before setting her tools down and poking her head out of the shuttle frame. The ground was several feet below. Her current assignment was to help get a new shuttle in working order after the Decepti-femmes had stolen the last one and rammed it into Darkmount Tower. Blitzangel was only one of many toiling to get the large ship in working order. She chose not to tell Drift what project the Autobots had assigned to her, lest his white paint instantly turn green with envy.

The purple femme pulled herself out and jumped to the ground. She saw Wheeljack rounding the hull of the ship, but before she could ask what was going on, a second figure came into view. The body had a different silhouette than what she was used to, but the black and white color scheme was still the same.

"Prowl," she called with glee as she jogged over to him. She couldn't believe his new body was already completed and he was walking around. She kept looking him over head to toe as if making sure herself that he was all in one piece and Ratchet hadn't forgotten anything.

She halted in front of him, grinning happily. Her gaze kept roaming over him, as if of its own accord. He was so angular now: chest flat with clean lines. Door panels replaced with high fins that almost looked like wings for an air mode.

"Wow, hey, look at you. You- you're taller now," she realized.

"I suppose I am, a bit," Prowl responded simply. "Alterations for an upgraded Cybertronian mode."

Blitzangel found herself wanting to run her hands over that sleek new frame. She reached out and then caught herself.

"Uh, well, I'd like to give you a hug, but I'm filthy." She glanced down at herself, covered in grease and motor oil. "And you're all white and shiny, and new." Her hands itched to touch him again. Just one quick slide over that smooth chest of his. What was wrong with her? She folded her arms to make them behave.

"I take it you approve of the new design?" Prowl asked.

Blitzangel shook herself to stop from staring. "Oh yeah, it's really nice. Ratchet does good work."

"Are you smirking?" Wheeljack asked him.

"What? Of course not," Prowl insisted, bringing his twitching mouth to task. He had been looking quite pleased with himself until he was called out. He opened his mouth to say something else to Blitzangel, but another high voice cut him off.

"Proooowlieeee!" Nightshade called, the shrill sound seemed to slice through any other sound in the massive hanger. She waved as she hurried over, Smokescreen walking behind her at a more casual pace. "Ah've been looking all over for you since I heard you were released from the infirmary. I would have visited you, but they wouldn't allow anyone in." She thrust out her full lower lip in a pout.

"Yes, the damage was quite extensive," Prowl nodded. "The medical team would not allow anyone else in while they worked so that they could finish as quickly as possible."

"I'll say it was quick," she continued with that southern belle drawl in her voice. "They gave ya'll a full upgrade in no time." She leaned in, tracing a finger over the pattern on his chest. "I do like it quite a bit."

His system thrilled at her touch, but he got himself under control. "Yes, we have a very talented team." Though Prowl was surprised to find he still valued Blitzangel's opinion of his new look. Most likely because she had been the one to save his life and she had been able to see his repairs step by step.

He turned to the purple femme, but the spot where Blitzangel had been standing was empty. For a moment, Prowl felt a strange sense of abandonment, then he recalled all the previous arguments that had been forgotten until now. She still did not like Nightshade, nor did she approve of Prowl's affections for her. So much so that she had been trying to dictate who he should and should not be friends with.

The renewed recollection of that irritated him. He also recalled her promise to stay away from him if he continued his pursuit of the green femme. That both annoyed and worried him, and his emotions couldn't decide which he felt more.

Then Nightshade pressed flush against him and all other thoughts flew out the window.

"So now that you're better n'all, do you think that sexy, new frame o'yours could look back into finding a new room for little 'ol me?" She pressed in tighter. "You know, somewhere I can really... stretch my legs?"

Prowl was lost in those sensual optics, a gaze so full of promises. He glanced up at Smokescreen, hoping to see pure jealousy in his older brother. But all Smokescreen did was roll his optics as if watching some cheesy play.

Fine, let him pretend his hold on Nightshade wasn't waning. Prowl wasn't the same stupid sparkling he was before. He was second in command of the Autobot army now, full of power and influence. All Smokescreen had was his immature mind games and they didn't work on him any more.

Feeling quite superior, Prowl put an arm around Nightshade and guided her away. "Come with me. I'm quite sure I can find you some place comfortable."

The last thing he saw was Smokescreen's frown before turning his back.

* * *

Prowl balked when he saw Smokescreen waiting for him by his personal quarters. He had been dodging his older brother's requests to meet since earlier that day, stating he was far too busy catching up from his absence. The reality was that Ratchet had ordered a light workload to make sure Prowl's new body was working properly before putting him back on full-time duty.

Of course, Smokescreen had no qualms with giving himself access to Prowl's schedule.

"If this is of a personal nature, I don't have the time," Prowl said as he typed in the pass code to his room.

"You have plenty of time," Smokescreen insisted, unswayed. "I came to talk to you and by Primus you're going to hear what your big brother has to say."

"Fine," Prowl relented as the door slid open. He always had a harder time rejecting Smokescreen when he played the big brother card. "Just make it brief. I have other more important issues to attend to."

Smokescreen did not argue the importance of his presence as he was allowed inside. As the doors closed behind them, Prowl readied himself for what he knew what coming.

"You need to give up on Nightshade, Prowl. I mean it."

The SIC's mouth ticked up just a bit in the shadow of a smirk. Smokescreen's time in Nightshade's affections was drawing to a close and they both knew it. Prowl wasn't shallow by nature, but he wouldn't be surprised if it was his new form that tipped the scales in his favor. Normally he wouldn't have noticed a single glance in his direction when going about his responsibilities, but being in a new frame made anyone hyper-aware of external reactions to their appearance. Walking around in a new skin was a very self-conscious experience. Prowl had taken note of quite a few female glances his way so far.

He drew up to his full height, now half a head taller than his older brother. "And why should I?"

"Because you don't love her," came the accusation without hesitation.

Prowl was floored at the answer. Of all the reasons he could have predicted, the question of his own feelings was never expected.

"Wh- how can- of course I love her," he stumbled, suddenly feeling like he had just lost his footing. "I have been in love with her since the moment I laid optics on her and we both know that. Don't you dare accuse me of not-"

"No, you don't, Prowl." Smokescreen stood firm. "You pursued her because she wasn't interested in you and you can't ignore a challenge. And you wanted her because she was mine and your pompous processor can't figure out why she would want me when she could have you. You don't love her; you love the idea of having her."

Prowl's mouth moved, but no sound came out. His impressively intelligent processor was failing to wrap around this turn of events. Smokescreen waited until he could form a sentence.

"You're worried I'm going to take her from you. That's why you're here," he finally managed to state.

"No, Prowl, I'm not. I don't mind sitting back and watching you try all day. I know it's not going to happen. Right now she's interested in what you can do for her, but she's not interested in you. The second you don't have anything else to offer, she'll be off again. I'm telling you to give her up because pursuing her is going to do nothing but make you bitter and miserable."

"I don't believe you," was the SIC's comeback.

"Doesn't matter what you believe, Prowl. It's the truth. I'm the only one standing back, looking at the entire picture here. You're still stuck in the past. All your emotions were put on hold due to that slagging battle computer. I know a lot of that was my fault and I'm trying to make it right. So I'm telling you to move on because I know it's something that you would have done yourself by now had you the capacity."

Prowl stood silently for a moment and Smokescreen dared to believe that he had gotten his message through.

"I still love Nightshade," Prowl insisted.

"She doesn't-" the blue Autobot snapped in frustration. He stopped himself before he said something that would really wound his brother. He tried a different approach.

"I know this isn't your fault. You've been too long without full emotional function to be able to read your feelings correctly. But I'm telling you, Nightshade isn't the one you're in love with."

Prowl just looked at him blankly.

"I'm talking about Blitzangel."

The SIC's jaw hit the floor. "What? How can you possibly say that? Of all the ridiculous accusations I've heard from you today. What makes you think-"

"You would die for her, Prowl."

"I'd die for a lot of bots here, including you. I have a responsibility to take care of her, that's all. She's not even our kind, for Primus' sake."

Smokescreen shrugged. "The spark wants what it wants."

"She doesn't have a spark."

Smokescreen threw his hands up in frustration. "Fine, you do what you want. You continue on this path to nowhere, pining for something you can't have. In the meantime, if today was any indication, that girl is going to continue to remove herself from your life if you keep doing what you're doing. She'll find another mech and leave you behind, alone."

He could see Prowl was still trying to process this new information, but Smokescreen wasn't going to give him a break this time. "What about her and Sunstreaker? He really had a thing for her before. They might be a good match. He'd be a lot more fun than you. He's had countless femmes before; he knows exactly what to do with one once he gets his hands on them.

"Or what about the neutral? I see femmes drooling after him where ever he goes. He's got optics for her. He could take her away from Cybertron and you would never see her again."

Prowl clenched his fists as sudden anger surged through him.

"Don't like that, do you?" Smokescreen continued to prod. "And do I even need to mention Jazz? Blitzangel adores him already. If that mech decided he would make her his, that would be the end of it. You would see them together, happy, finally realizing what you missed out on. But it would be too late. He will have already had her, doing things to her behind closed doors. Teaching her how to be a femme, teaching her things you're too scared-"

"Stop," Prowl cut him off icily. "Get out. That's an order. I don't want to see or hear from you for the rest of the day. Leave."

The blue Autobot hunched his shoulders in surrender. "Alright. I've said what I need to say. In the end, you're your own mech, Prowl. The rest is up to you."

The door hissed shut behind him, but Prowl still fumed after his brother was gone. Anger boiled within him, partnered with confusion, as if he wasn't sure exactly what directed his frustration. Damn Smokescreen and his mind games. He didn't have time for this.

* * *

They floated there like their own galaxy, rotating around each other in the emptiness of space. Cybertron awaited in the distance, but the three seekers had not been given permission to land just yet. Their mission was to find the metal planet, then they had to report back to their master.

Communication over vast amounts of space is not instantaneous. It takes time for information to travel such a distance: hours, days. For the three vessels of the Unmaker, time held no relevance as they hovered in a dormant state. They conveyed to their creator their path and the location of his ultimate target. He was still so very far away, but now moving forward in the right direction, eager and hungry.

Once all information had been sent, the servants waited still for further orders. Eventually, the response came back.

_You have done well my children__. __G__o__, __p__repare Cybertron for my coming. You know what to do._

Three pairs of optics flickered back on. Sunstorm's brilliant fire-like glow returned to his body and he grinned.

"Finally." The orange seeker tipped his head toward Cybertron. "Let's go send the locals a wake-up call."

Slipstream grinned while Acid Storm merely nodded. All three transformed, igniting their thrusters on full burn toward the planet, picking up speed as they hit Cybertron's gravitational pull at full force.

Their entrance into Cybertron's airspace did not go unnoticed by either faction. The three celestial bodies lit up like shooting stars in their ever-increasing descent. Even as they neared the surface, they did not slow down.

The three flaming objects collided with the planet like meteorites, burning through the metal of the top layer and drilling deeper through the crust to the very heart of the metal world.

* * *

Blitzangel stepped into Prowl's office, seeing it for the first time. It wasn't a terribly large room, neat and utilitarian in design. A large window was crafted into one wall, offering a view of Iacon's busy streets and walkways below.

She wasn't necessarily looking forward to speaking with him when summoned. While Blitzangel was always happy to help, she hoped he hadn't called her there to give her another dirty repair job. She had just finished meticulously picking out all the junk from her finger joints and was squeaky clean. But she figured she should keep a good attitude about it. Maybe it would be something fun.

"Hey Prowl, new body still working out for you?" she greeted him.

"Yes," he responded stoically from his desk while he fiddled with some data pads. "So far so good."

"Great! I'll have to see what alt mode Ratchet cooked up for you sometime. I bet it looks cool."

Prowl didn't respond to that comment, but finished with what he was doing before looking up at her. "Will you please have a seat?"

That was instantly a bad sign. Was she in trouble? She couldn't think of what would be the cause. She hadn't done anything recently that wasn't personally approved by a superior officer.

"Why do I need to sit? Is this bad news?"

"No. I would just like to talk with you."

"Is it business related?"

"Not necessarily, no."

She smiled. "Prowl, if you want to hang out and talk we can go talk. You don't have to order me to your office like I'm in trouble."

"I would prefer it if you sat."

Blitzangel put her hands on her hips. "I don't want to sit."

"You're irritated with me."

"Yeah? And why do you think that is?"

"Earlier, when we were talking, you left when Nightshade came over."

"I sure did. I have explained to you how I feel about her and how she treats you. I also told you if you weren't interested in my opinion, then I would stay out of it. That was me staying out of it."

"I find that to be a very regrettable decision on your part."

The femme wandered over to gaze out the window, watching the bots below go about their day. "Yeah, well, you clearly hold her in higher regard than myself. The only pertinent course of action would be for me to let it go instead of getting in your way."

"I see." He paused. "You know, you... I've never had any femme express themselves to me the way you do."

"Because I'm not sneaky and manipulative," she shot back. "I do what I say I'm going to do and I mean what I say."

"I have always appreciated your being forthright."

"Except when your dream girl is involved," she challenged him, voice sarcastic. "I say one thing about her you don't like and you immediately get angry."

He stood, fins at attention and giving her that warning look that she had been receiving far too often. "I get angry when someone attacks those I care about."

"You don't even take the time to consider if what I say is true!" she snapped, voice rising. "You blindly bend to her manipulations like a puppet! She doesn't care about you and you're being an idiot!"

Prowl walked around his desk, moving closer to her. He hated that the same words were coming out of both his brother's mouth and Blitzangel's. Why did she insist on being so irritating? "Just because I am not taking your side does not mean you can act this way. Running off every time you see Nightshade is childish."

Blitzangel tried to move back to get some room, but the window blocked her. She hated being boxed in, by Prowl or anyone else. Her chest felt tight when all exits were taken away. Getting some space became forefront in her thoughts; the current argument was just a distraction.

"I said I don't want to be involved. Stop dragging me into it." She tried to get around him, but he stubbornly blocked her way.

"I will when you stop trying to make me choose between the two of you. You don't see Nightshade doing these things."

Blitzangel wasn't really paying attention anymore. She kept trying to steal glances at the door over his broad shoulders. But Prowl kept impeding her view and pushing her back.

"You need to accept the fact that I care about her, too, and nothing you say is going to change-"

"Oh my God, Prowl! I don't care!" she cried, her voice tipping into a panicked tone. "Just get out of my face! You're freaking me out!"

The SIC balked in his argument, now taking a good look at the femme's emotional state. She stood there, tense and stiff. One hand floated above her mouth, it was shaking. He had forgotten there were still a few delicate parts of her because she had been doing so well lately.

"Blitzangel, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to get so-"

"I cannot handle any more bullshit in my life! I am to my limit, Prowl! And you keep forcing your personal drama on me!"

"Angel," he tried to grab her arm, realization and regret in his voice.

"No!" Her whole body shook as she pulled away. Her voice cracked, on the verge of a sob. "You can't make me feel bad for wanting something better for you and you can't make me be a part of her hurting you. I'm done with this, with you. Let me out."

"No," Prowl said softly, still blocking her exit. Smokescreen was right, she was going to move right out of his life and Prowl himself was doing most of the pushing. Deep down in his spark, he knew he had been doing all the wrong things. This isn't want he wanted.

Blitzangel pushed on his chest. "Let me out, Prowl." The seed of panic was beginning to grow in her tank again. She tried to keep herself calm.

He gripped her arms at the elbows, gentle but firm. "No, I'm not letting you go."

"What-"

His mouth was on hers in an open-mouthed kiss. It was simple and short, forcing all Blitzangel's raging emotions to pause while surprise and the curiousness of his touch flooded in. Her anxiety dissipated like a deep exhale.

Prowl pulled back, watching her. Blitzangel stood blankly in the brief interlude, trying to figure out what just happened and why his usual light blue optics were now a smoldering deep ocean. It was a span of mere seconds before he kissed her again.

She squeaked as his body pressed her firmly against the wall. The noise she made seemed only to add to his hunger as he kissed her like a bot possessed. Blitzangel felt like she was drowning from too much feedback at once. Yet, through the haze, she found she was kissing him back. Her arms were wrapped around his neck, his hands on her body. It felt good. It felt very good.

Still, at the back of her processor, that pang of unease crept in. His whole body pinned her, leaving her unable to move. His kisses were starved and smothering. She needed him to calm down; she needed a moment to breathe.

"Prowl," she managed to say during the assault on her mouth. She pressed her hands against his chest, pushing him away. "Prowl, please... stop."

His body tensed, not pressing so hard as he tried to gain control. But his mouth wouldn't listen. It was drunk on her taste as if it had been craving her its entire life.

"I'm sorry," he pleaded as he kissed her again and again. "I'm sorry... I'm sorry..."

Finally he managed to pull away, his fuel pump beating rapidly. He was no longer touching her, but Blitzangel was still trapped between the two palms pressed to the wall on either side of her. Prowl's head hung down as he vented out waves of hot air, trying to get his systems under control.

Blitzangel was still trying to find her footing in all of this. Her systems buzzed pleasantly at the contact, but her mind was completely blank. His twitching fin caught her gaze and suddenly held all her curiosity. Her hand floated up to touch it, but Prowl snatched her wrist in mid air, pinning it to the wall.

"No," he insisted. He pressed the bridge of his nose to her neck, still venting air. "Give me a moment."

She felt her systems flutter at his shaky, breathy voice. He didn't want her to touch him, afraid he would lose control again. She was doing this to him. This was so... how _did_ it make her feel? Anxious, scared?

Excited?

There was a knock on the office door.

"Prowl, drop your paperwork," Kup's voice called. "We've got some unidentified objects in our airspace. They're requesting your tailpipe up in surveillance."

Prowl emitted a growl, something deep and frustrated within his engine. Blitzangel was a little stunned at the sound.

"What does Optimus think it is?" he called, not giving up the femme he had in his grip.

"He's not around. That's why we need you."

Another growl, this time more from Prowl's vocalizer.

Blitzangel was still trying to process the entirety of what had occurred in the last few minutes when Prowl was suddenly nowhere around her. His office door closed behind him and she was left alone trying to make sense of it all.

* * *

It was a very rare moment indeed. All stations were covered now that Prowl was fully rebuilt and back on duty. No one else needed him and Elita was too busy with her own work to have time for any personal attention.

It was one of those rare and wonderful moments where he actually had time to himself and Optimus took full advantage of it. He left the boundaries of Iacon, not stating where he was going, but leaving his radio open and plenty of high commanding officers in his stead should anything go awry. This time was his and his alone. He needed a break and his subordinates did not argue.

Just the drive out by himself was nice. The roads were in a poor state, making it a bumpy trip, but it felt good not to be rushing into battle or some other emergency. How long had it been since he had felt safe and free just to _drive_? Just to go out wherever the road took him and to see what he could find? There was no such luxury for that these days, not anymore.

Optimus knew his break from responsibility was brief. This drive wasn't for mere pleasure. He felt drawn to a particular spot, a place that had been calling him all day. It was a call he could no longer ignore. His wheels never strayed as his whole being made a beeline for one particular destination.

There wasn't much left of it any longer, not after Megatron got through with it. One of the first major devastations by the Decepticon army. Optimus transformed and walked around the leveled area. It used to be a transfer and storage facility. Random goods would move in and out at all times of the day, like construction materials and traded goods from other planets. But mostly, the facility dealt in the transportation of energon.

Optimus looked over the remains of the storage buildings, hands on hips. A large portion of his life had been spent here when he was a young bot. Working the storage docks wasn't the most glamorous of professions, but it paid the bills and still left him time to play and socialize. Having fun and freedom to goof around were so important to him back then. How time had changed him. How Megatron had changed him.

When the Decepticons attacked the energy storage, Optimus had been one of the very first casualties of the raid, as had his friends. He still remembered that day so clearly. The look on Megatron's face as he pulled the trigger, the heat and pain of the cannon as he felt his circuits melt.

Elita One, called Ariel back then, had also been there. But she remembered none of this, neither did she remember who she was before Alpha Trion repaired her wounds and rebuilt her. Optimus still wrestled with that as well, wondering whether it was for the best she not remember her past.

Then there was Dion. His best friend. They had been sparked at nearly the same time and Optimus couldn't remember life without him. Dion was also at ground zero during the Decepticon attack. Buildings exploded and burned, the entire place was leveled to ashes and the remains of Dion's body were never found.

It hurt for Optimus to recall this moment in his past. His first and most poignant failure. He had let Elita down, believing she had not made it and never looking into Alpha Trion's motives further. Revenge had been too forefront in his processor to find Dion and give his body the proper respect he deserved. It was his greatest and last moment of pure selfishness and Optimus vowed he would never be that self-centered again.

Since then, Optimus tried not to deal too much in the past. It was the future that consumed his thoughts most of the time. The future of his soldiers, those who looked to him for guidance. They were what mattered now and Optimus had a responsibility to keep them alive.

But ever since returning to Cybertron, this place had been calling to him. Now, stronger than ever. He couldn't shake the feeling he was meant to be here. The Matrix itself pulled him; he needed to go. Now that he was here, in the place that started it all, Optimus wasn't sure what he was supposed to do. There was nothing here any longer, just old, painful memories.

He wandered onto the old HaloSphere court. A few cracks split the smooth ground, but most of it seemed to be intact. Optimus recalled so many times after work, hours spent playing here, not a care in the world except for working on his game. It was an obsession of his to become the best HaloSphere player at the facility.

Every once in a while, all the employees would have a tournament. The winner was pronounced 'king for a day', in which they earned first place in line for energon rations, their choice of which position to work that day, and the ever-coveted bragging rights.

Optimus was good at HaloSphere, but no matter how hard he worked, there were always bots who were better. Someone always bested him in the tournaments. More often than not, that someone was Dion. The bot was nearly unbeatable at the game. Everyone told him often he should look into going pro, but Dion would just laugh it off and say he enjoyed reaping the benefits he won working right there.

As he reminisced, Optimus noticed something scribbled on a wall and one specific memory flooded back to him. It was his own handwriting. Though the date had faded out into nothing, Optimus knew exactly what date it was as he read the inscription:

_Here stood Orion Pax, king for a day._

There was that one tournament, the one he had practiced so hard for. In the end, it was just himself against Dion. Optimus knew he didn't stand a chance against him, but he never let it show. Yet, by some miracle, he won. As the young Orion Pax, Optimus harbored suspicions that maybe Dion had let him win, but he never got around to asking before everything went to hell.

That was the day when he finally was first in the energon line. And, Optimus recalled with horrific clarity, the day when he got to choose his own shift. He was the one who put himself near those energon storage buildings when Megatron came. He had put himself and his friends in the line of fire, as if all of it was meant to be.

As he touched the faded writing on the wall, Optimus' hand shook slightly at the realization. Even for the bearer of the Matrix, life suddenly felt so heavy and terrifying.

A strange sound from the sky ripped Optimus from his personal crisis and he whipped his head upward. Three unidentified objects glowed in brilliant, multicolored light as they entered Cybertron's atmosphere. At first they appeared like falling stars, but quickly increased in size as they hurtled toward the surface. Optimus felt the tremors of their impact and felt this, too, was all part of the plan. He had been meant to be out here. He had been meant to see those objects, but why?

The balls of fire brilliantly lit up the atmosphere with their purple, green and yellow lights. As quickly as they appeared, they were gone as they passed through the surface of Cybertron like a hot knife through butter.

* * *

Layer after layer, the metal gave way from the searing heat, melting instantly as the three objects melted their way to Cybertron's core. Once at the very heart of the planet, the heat subsided and the lights faded away. Save one.

Sunstorm's fiery glow returned to normal. He left melted foot prints where he stood, but they had reached their desired level and he would burn his way through no more. Slipstream and Acid Storm no longer glowed with an unhealthy heat, completely undamaged from their entrance. The three walked silently forward through the abandoned caverns as if they had been there many times before and knew exactly where they were going.

They entered a large corridor, ceilings high and ornate. Old, superannuated sentries stood on either side, rusted in place and forever at attention. The three seekers glanced at them momentarily before following the walkway toward the end. Everything was pitch dark, save for Sunstorm's own yellow glow to light their way.

They stepped into a circular chamber with a pedestal in the middle. On top sat a dormant, multifaceted orb. Sunstorm grinned when he saw it.

"Ah, there it is. We'll be finished here in no time."

He stepped one foot upon the dais and a blinding light seared his optics. He winced and held an arm to his face as the orb coruscated and floated above the platform.

_I am Vector Sigma,_ a deep, ubiquitous voice announced. It reverberated off the walls, as if coming from everywhere at once. _Before Cybertron was, I was. You who approach me, you are not of the Children of Primus. You have no place here._

Sunstorm smirked at the thing. "You're right about that first thing, but our boss gave us a job to do and right here is exactly where we need to be."

_I know of your puppet master_, the glowing supercomputer replied. _What business does he have with me?_

"He sends you a message. No more new sparks. The age of Cybertron is at an end."

_You dare dictate to me! I am Vector Sigma! I-_

Sunstorm snatched the orb from the air. "I know who and what you are."

The heat of the orange seeker instantly cranked up, the epicenter of his power focused in his hands. Vector Sigma began to crackle and smoke.

Sunstorm grinned as the orb melted in his grip. Metal droplets fell through his fingers and hissed on the ground. "Unicron sends his regards."

Even without a mouth, the supercomputer screamed.

* * *

On the surface, Optimus still stood in uncertainty, wondering as to his next course of action. The smoke from the three melted craters had now dissipated and he continued to ask himself whether he should investigate. He knew their arrival was significant and he was meant to see it. But as to what he was supposed to do next, that remained a mystery.

Whatever influence coaxed him to this place was not pushing him toward the impact site and Optimus felt a very real chill of danger in his system from that area. So what was he expected to do now? Call for backup? Put his fellow Autobots in danger when he had no idea what they were up against? That didn't seem right.

However, he wasn't the only one who had noticed the approach of the three objects. A call from Iacon hailed on his radio. Optimus was about to answer it when an internal scream lit up his sensory relays. It wasn't his scream, neither did it come from an external source. It came from inside somehow, a complex anguish from the Matrix and from his very spark.

It overloaded all his senses, causing him to buckle over, all his pain receptors on fire. It felt like he was dying, his life being burned away from the inside out. The call from Iacon was a whisper in a violent storm as the sensation overwhelmed the Prime and he fell to the ground in stasis.


End file.
